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Former MSNBC host Joy Reid took problem with a well-liked Christmas carol, reposting a video that describes the beloved tune as racist. The now-viral clip has renewed scrutiny of the carol’s previous, as the educational whose analysis the video relies on says that wasn’t her intent.
In the video, a person in festive apparel stares at a plaque in Medford, Massachusetts, the place James Lord Pierpont is believed to have written what grew to become generally known as “Jingle Bells.”
The video makes the argument that the tune’s early performances have been used to “mock” Black individuals. It goes on to debate Pierpont’s historical past utilizing racialized dialect and slurs in different works. The clip additionally notes that the author later fought for the Confederate Army in protection of slavery.
Joy-Ann Reid speaks onstage in the course of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation annual Legislative Conference National Town Hall on the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 25. (Leigh Vogel/Getty Images for Congressional Black Caucus Foundation)
“This is the place a racist Confederate soldier wrote ‘Jingle Bells’ to make enjoyable of Black individuals,” reads the primary caption on display screen.
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The video says that Pierpont was strapped for money and wrote the unique model, “The One Horse Open Sleigh,” for performances the place White actors in blackface caricatured Black individuals “attempting to take part in winter actions.”
Reid, who misplaced her MSNBC present “The ReidOut” earlier this yr, reposted the clip to her 1.3 million Instagram followers, writing, “Lord have mercy.” The video cites a 2017 Cambridge University Press paper titled “The Story I Must Tell: ‘Jingle Bells’ within the Minstrel Repertoire.”
“The legacy of ‘Jingle Bells’ is, as we will see, a major instance of a typical misreading of a lot well-liked music from the nineteenth century,” writes creator Kyna Hamill within the examine.
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“Its blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically faraway from its historical past,” she added.
Joy Reid speaks onstage on the 2025 ESSENCE Black Women in Hollywood Awards held on the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, California, on Feb. 27. (Leon Bennett/Getty Images for ESSENCE)
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However, Hamill has repeatedly stated her work is being misrepresented and that she by no means claimed “Jingle Bells” was written as racist mockery. She maintains her analysis focuses on the efficiency historical past of the tune and the place it originated, not on Pierpont’s intent in composing it.
“I by no means stated it was racist now,” Hamill advised the Boston Herald in 2017, including that she was not trying to dictate what songs are sung at Christmas.
