Racist Christmas
ALLERT: Favorite American Christmas songs are under ATTACK!
Last week a Boston University lecturer, Dr. Kyna Hamill, came to the startling conclusion that one of our beloved Christmas songs was…are you ready for this?…racist. No lie!…racist! The offending song?…None other that Jingle Bells! According to Dr. Hamill, the song was written to mock black people’s enjoyment of winter sports. To support her conclusion she points to an a theater poster that she uncovered from the 1800’s suggesting the song was first performed by local minstrels in Salem, Massachusetts, wearing “black face”.
White performers who were made up to appear black was (for reasons that escape me) a popular form of entertainment in the 1800’s. However, I would contend that whether the song was first performed in “black face” or not, claiming that the song intended to ridicule black sleighing makes absolutely no sense. Sleighing was a bourgeoise sport that utilized expensive things like sleighs and horses. Accordingly, it would seem VERY unlikely that it would have been undertaken with any regularity by blacks in nineteenth century New England. And, in any case, even if it WAS, would enjoyment of a winter sport be grounds for ridicule?
We have also learned, recently, that another of out beloved Christmas songs, Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer, is also being scrutinized. Why? Well, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer was BULLIED, you see. Because of his red nose, the other reindeer “laughed and called him names.” While any fair minded person certainly doesn’t condone bullying, neither does the song. These critics seem to miss the whole point of the song: traits that make some of us seem different than than others may actually turn out, in time, to be virtues. The song, in fact, celebrates “diversity”, and doesn’t condone bullying in ANY way.
Even the song White Christmas this year has been embroiled in controversy! It seems that earlier this month the campus newspaper of London University ran an article saying that they were dreaming of a “white campus”. English people “of color” went in to a frenzy. The campus paper was forced to issue an apology and a clarification that what they really MEANT was that they were dreaming NOT of a fully Caucasian student body, but, rather, a campus COVERED WITH SNOW, an event that happens rarely in London.
So to all the Christmas killjoys out there, I have only one thing to say. Quoting the penultimate killjoy, Ebenezer Scrooge:
BAH, HUMBUG!