We can't have anything nice in this country.
Former MSNBC host Joy Reid reposted a viral video that alleges that the song "Jingle Bells" is racist. The academic whose research the clip relies on says she never intended to suggest the beloved Christmas song was written with racist intent.
From Fox News:
In the video, a man in festive attire stares at a plaque in Medford, Massachusetts, where James Lord Pierpont is believed to have written what became known as "Jingle Bells."
The video makes the argument that the song’s early performances were used to "mock" Black people. It goes on to discuss Pierpont’s history using racialized dialect and slurs in other works. The clip also notes that the writer later fought for the Confederate Army in defense of slavery.
🇺🇸 JOY REID SHARES VIDEO CLAIMING "JINGLE BELLS" WAS WRITTEN "TO MAKE FUN OF BLACK PEOPLE"
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) December 10, 2025
They really can't let people enjoy Christmas.
Fired MSNBC host Joy Reid shared a video to her 1.3 million Instagram followers claiming the beloved Christmas anthem "Jingle Bells" was… pic.twitter.com/EM4NaVjZPW
"This is where a racist Confederate soldier wrote ‘Jingle Bells’ to make fun of Black people," the caption of the first viral video reads.
The video claims that Pierpont, the song’s author, wrote what was then titled “The One Horse Open Sleigh” while he was short on money for performances in which White actors in blackface pretended to be Black people, trying to participate in winter activities.” The video cites a 2017 Cambridge University Press paper titled "The Story I Must Tell: ‘Jingle Bells’ in the Minstrel Repertoire."
Reid reposted the video with the caption, "Lord have mercy."
"The legacy of ‘Jingle Bells’ is, as we shall see, a prime example of a common misreading of much popular music from the nineteenth century," the author of the study, Kyna Hamill, wrote."Its blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history."
However, she says her study is being misrepresented, as she never claimed "Jingle Bells" was written as racist mockery. She has continually said she was simply researching the origin of the song, never the intent behind its creation.
"I never said it was racist now," Hamill told the Boston Herald in 2017.