Joy-less Joy Reid gets it wrong again with claim ‘Jingle Bells’ is racist

Failed MSNBC host Joy Reid is doing her best to spoil Christmas cheer with her never-ending race-baiting hustle.

Reid shared a video of a young man standing by a site in Medford, Massachusetts, where James Lord Pierpont is believed to have written the song in 1850.

“This is where a racist Confederate soldier wrote ‘Jingle Bells’ to make fun of black people,” a caption on the video shared by Reid read. The captions continued to claim that the song was rooted in bigoted minstrel shows that were popular at the time.

According to the video, Pierpont was allegedly cash-strapped and wrote the song specifically to “mock and caricature black people trying to participate in winter activities.”

Pierpont, interestingly enough was uncle to the legendary financier J.P. Morgan, and reportedly “patented the song in 1859 and changed its name to the familiar ‘Jingle Bells’ before the start of the Civil War. the video goes on to claim that Pierpont “abandoned his family” to join the Confederate Army, and wrote Southern fight songs to “rouse men defending slavery.”

But the young man and Reid aren’t the first to make the alleged connection between the song and minstrelsy. Council Rock Primary School in upstate New York reportedly banned the song from its Christmas concert over its alleged racist roots, the New York Post reported.

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A quick fact check from Grok AI says Pierpont did not write “Jingle Bells” (first-titled “The One Horse Open Sleigh”) specifically for minstrel shows, but was composed in the style used for the shows at the time. And its first documented public performance was in a blackface minstrel show.

Reid was obviously eager to feed her followers the divisive red meat they apparently crave, but plenty of X users weren’t taking the bait.

You and I know she’s looking into it.

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Now, that’s got a ring to it.

Merry Christmas!

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