"Jingle Bells" is racist says BU Professor

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“Jingle Bells,” one of the most well-known Christmas carols in the world, is now being called racist.

"The legacy of ‘Jingle Bells’ is one where its blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history,” Kyna Hamill, a BU theater historian, wrote in her “Theatre Survey” research paper on the story of “Jingle Bells.”

“Its origins emerged from the economic needs of a perpetually unsuccessful man, the racial politics of antebellum Boston, the city’s climate, and the intertheatrical repertoire of commercial blackface performers moving between Boston and New York,” Hamill wrote.

The traces of blackface minstrel origins can be found in the music and lyrics, as well as the “elements of ‘male display,’ boasting, and the unbridled behavior of the male body onstage,” the author wrote.

The song’s lyrics, which Hamill adds “display no real originality,” and reference things like “Miss Fanny Bright” and “dashing through the snow” connect the song to blackface dandy, according to the research paper.

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