School banned Jingle Bells due to racism concerns

[cinematicdiversions]

https://rochesterbeacon.com/2021/12/23/jingle-all-the-way-maybe-not/

“Jingle Bells,” explained Council Rock principal Matt Tappon in an email, has been replaced with other songs that don’t have “the potential to be controversial or offensive.”

Tappon and other staff confirmed by email that the decision to remove the song was based in part on information in a 2017 article written by professor Kyna Hamill, director of Boston University’s Core Curriculum. Hamill’s article is a deep dive (nearly 12,000 words including appendices and footnotes) into the origin of “Jingle Bells,” the life of its composer, James L. Pierpont, and the popularity of sleigh songs in the mid-1800s. She found documents showing that the song’s first public performance may have occurred in 1857 at a Boston minstrel show. Minstrelsy was a then-popular form of entertainment in which white actors performed in blackface.

But when told that Council Rock has removed ‘Jingle Bells” based partly on her research, Hamill responded in an email: “I am actually quite shocked the school would remove the song from the repertoire. … I, in no way, recommended that it stopped being sung by children.”

When I shared Hamill’s response with Council Rock staff, Allison Rioux, Brighton Central School District assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, offered a different reason for removing “Jingle Bells.” She wrote:

“Some suggest that the use of collars on slaves with bells to send an alert that they were running away is connected to the origin of the song Jingle Bells. While we are not taking a stance to whether that is true or not, we do feel strongly that this line of thinking is not in agreement with our district beliefs to value all cultures and experiences of our students.



This reminds me of the Picnic is racist lunatics or the Black Hole is racist lunatics

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy and really are looking for things to be offended by.

[msongs]

1. so are they gonna ban white christmas? nt

[cinematicdiversions]

2. I think Parson Brown is also on the chopping block. NT

[kskiska]

36. Maybe, since it was written by a Jew,

Irving Berlin. In that case we'd lose other Berlin songs, like God Bless America.

[Progressive Jones]

3. Not down with this. There are mountains of racist situations that need action. nt

[rockfordfile]

6. I agree

[ColinC]

4. Wut

[TheBlackAdder]

40. Perhaps it's the Bart Simpson version. 😀

.

The Bart version.

The Robert Goulet version.

.

[smirkymonkey]

51. Yup!

[jimfields33]

5. I thought this was sarcasm at first.

Wow! Speechless.

[ColinC]

52. I mean it is hardly a Grammy winning tune

But it's a dumb decision and will definitely spur the "liberals are canceling jingle bells" morons on full blast.

[tenderfoot]

7. This sounds like total bullshit

eom

[AZSkiffyGeek]

8. I think I read it was written by a pro slavery activist

Dunno about any lyrical content…

[Torchlight]

9. Thankfully, one school does not make a summer.

Were this standard, I'd of course be concerned. But seeing as it's one school, well... examples are not standards.

I remember when the Seuss estate said it would stop publishing some of his works, and a few overly-zealot fans proclaimed how bad it makes everyone looks. I'd bet folding money no one remembers any names of anyone involved in that particular tempest in a teapot only six months later. And the world kept turning.

[Sneederbunk]

10. The National Anthem is off the table.

Francis Scott Key owned slaves.

[unblock]

11. Seriously what's the problem here? They dropped a song from the playlist, so what?

Sure, I agree that it's overreach to say this song is racist, so maybe it's a silly reason to drop a song from the playlist.

But on the other hand...

It's not like there's a huge shortage of christmas songs to choose from.

Besides, when a rock group stops playing a song on their tours, that's not censorship or a ban or anything like it. It's just opting to go with another song instead. It's not a big deal.

This school isn't banning people from singing jingle bells in the hallways between classes if they want.

Sheesh.

[Crunchy Frog]

37. They could have quietly simply not used it, and nobody would have noticed.

Instead they chose to go about it in such a way that it will become a massive RW cause celebre.

The way they chose to go about it will cause it to feed into the growing RW narrative in a huge way. That is what the "big deal" is.

I wouldn't be surprised if the principal turned out to be a closet trumper. Deliberately pulling off this stunt in order to fire up the right wingers.

[unblock]

39. We're toast if that requirement is that every left-leaning principal needs to be perfect

The right wing propaganda network will *always* find some reason for outrage. They will fabricate it if need be.

When they find some such situation, we cannot let ourselves get sucked into a narrative where we or a reasonable principal did something wrong. It only plays into their hands and creates a completely unrealistic bar.

Instead, we should ignore it or laugh at the right-wingers for making a big deal out of nothing or for misunderstanding censorship.

[Crunchy Frog]

41. I'm not looking for "perfect". Just not being a complete, blithering idiot.

That's if he is left leaning, which I'm not at all convinced of.

At any rate, he's handed a great gift to the RW, but it will likely resonate well beyond the rabid Fox viewing types. We'll see what sort of hay they're able to make from it. No way for either of us to know in advance.

[cinematicdiversions]

47. Just not being a complete, blithering idiot is really the perfect bar

Amazing how many people in public life are incapable of clearing it.

[Raine]

12. This is what they waste their time with 🙄

when there's so many other things to be concerned about.

[Takket]

13. this is absurd........

even if any of that is true, and there is no concrete proof, any racist meaning behind the song was forgotten decades ago and it is what it is... a song literally about sleigh bells jingling at Christmastime.

[Scrivener7]

14. Well... that's bonkers.

[boston bean]

15. Just stupid.

[BannonsLiver]

16. This is how conservative voters are created.

[Torchlight]

22. Meanwhile, Oklahoma bill would allow clergy to teach Bible courses in public schools

I think that has much, much more potential to create conservative voters.

[BannonsLiver]

27. Yes, they will love that.

But it’s not stepping on a rake like jingle bells. That’s the key difference. The Oklahoma bill is fan service.

[Torchlight]

28. The OK bill is fan service, and this one school is a statistical aberration

that defines nothing and no one other than that singular school district.

I think voting on a state sanctioned religion is a rake so large many willfully ignore it as such, and focus on that which has no measurable consequence.

[JI7]

33. No, The conservatives will already vote based on the clergy shit . But those who might

not like teaching bible in classes might also be turned off by the ban on jingle bells . These are casual voters. They don't pay too close attention . They mostly vote on how they feel at the moment they are voting .

[tenderfoot]

24. Kind of like Liberal/Progressive voters created from Book Bans and attacks on School Board Meetings

[BlackSkimmer]

34. Yup. nt

[kcr]

42. Yes, because schools everywhere are banning Jingle Bells

:sarasm:

[Kingofalldems]

17. Any Democrats calling for the ban of Jingle Bells?

I know of none, zero point zero.

[Igel]

32. What are the chances that those doing the banning in this case ...

Are (R)?

Or (G)?

Can't say for sure, but odds they did or would have (had they) voted for Biden.

[brooklynite]

18. This is why Republicans get mileage complaining about "woke" behavior.

[Torchlight]

23. Because they focus on inconsequential statistical aberrations?

Sounds like the kind of mileage only a huckster would sign on to.

[uponit7771]

54. +1

[Initech]

19. What the hell???.

[Hekate]

20. I remember the DU discussions (ahem) over "niggardly" and "Black Friday."

The first means stingy, miserly, parsimonious, ungenerous, close-fisted. True, it is archaic, but anyone who has read a novel even only 50 years old will find the word and know it from its context.
Etymology here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_niggardly

Black Friday relates to old bookkeeping terminology, it which black ink was used to signify sales and profits — and red ink was the opposite. After being “in the red” for months, companies would find themselves joyously “in the black” just before Christmas, in particular the day after Thanksgiving Thursday, when people typically jump into their Christmas shopping. On Friday. Hence Black Friday.

The “bells on slave collars” explanation is ludicrous. Sleighs had bells. There are a whole lot of songs featuring sleigh bells.

[Hortensis]

58. THIS. Sleighs, wagons, horses have worn "jingling" bells for centuries.

Good grief.

Extremism is the spiritus mundi.

[FSogol]

64. You forgot "calling a spade a spade". That caused an uproar.

Totally agree: "The “bells on slave collars” explanation is ludicrous."

[lindysalsagal]

21. Parents are on the attack. Over anything.

School officials bow to frightened school trustees who require re-election. Everything is politics.

[XanaDUer2]

25. No

[bahboo]

26. moranic....

[tenderfoot]

29. ONE school in NY State bans 'Jingle Bells' - how this could spell trouble for Democrats next on Fox

BTW, the only publications covering this nonsense are right wing sources.

[fescuerescue]

30. They had to do some really deep and hard research to get offended.

Went back 150 years.

That's some dedication to being offended that we don't see enough of nowadays.

[Tarc]

31. This kinda stuff is kooky, far-leftist Jill Stein-ish territory. Not Democratic or liberal

but unfortunately we get tarred by association.

[Crunchy Frog]

35. There's no such thing as something that doesn't have

“the potential to be controversial or offensive.”

I wonder if the principal is a stealth trumpist.

[cinematicdiversions]

38. Honestly I run into these people all the time.

They are not Trumpests.... They are shall we say well meaning... a little too well meaning.


They are legion every time Halloween comes around, for example.

[OneGrassRoot]

43. ...

at the risk of getting pounced on, may I say I run into them a lot too and they're almost always white, college-aged women. Well meaning "allies" who often create more harm than real awareness, not only with what they're attacking but how they do it. And I find it so difficult. They're LOUD and don't listen (I'm old and white). I've always spoken up and agree even little things are often steeped in the pervasive white supremacy upon which this society was founded, but still...stick with the huge, obvious battles rather than little things like Jingle Bells because, as everyone is saying, that just feeds the right-wing machine and even turns moderate voters away.

[Vinca]

44. This is one of the dumbest notions I've ever heard. Now we're going to be blamed not only

for killing Christmas, but killing Santa. Unless there is proof Santa and his reindeer are runaway slaves, they need to STFU. I'd hate to hear what they've got to say about Santa's "ho, ho, ho."

[DenaliDemocrat]

45. This shit is why they mock us

Jingle bells is about a sleigh ride with horses that have bells on their harness

[yardwork]

46. This is stupid.

[Celerity]

48. this is the type of bollocks that will turn our Party into a permanent minority

[smirkymonkey]

53. Exactly!

It's embarrassing!

[uponit7771]

56. No it wouldn't, if J6 didn't turn the GQP into a minority then this text book edge case would not

... and if it would then opposition party messaging is overtly dismissive.

[Celerity]

57. Disagree. Obviously this one thing will not, but to embrace this type

of OTT revisionist hyper oversensitivity will alienate enough voters to make us nonviable.

[uponit7771]

59. Wait, GQP stays viable after CONTINUED text book treason but we wont be viable ...

... if we embrace oversensitivity?

That sounds backwards or at the least at dismisive view of the electorate

[Celerity]

60. embracing bollocks like banning Jingle Bells is electoral poison in reactionary America

[uponit7771]

61. I think that's messaging, if we can't demonize people who are text book racist, child abusers

... we're fucked at as a country.

Allowing any focus to be on edge case minutia is what is poison, narratives can be swayed dems have to use the tools around them to do so.

[Celerity]

62. the ones focusing on 'edge case minutia' are the anti Jingle Bells crowd

The whole thing is easily weaponised by the RW to stigmatise our entire Party via disingenuous but effective broad-brush attacks.

[uponit7771]

63. "The whole thing is easily weaponised by the RW " because of lack of dem message mechanics !!

I am going to push this as much as I can; democrats need better message mechanics so edge cause minutia like "jingle anything" doesn't get the focus saving democracy or climate change or civil rights needs.

The reason the RW can "weaponize" anything of so little consequence is our voices aren't loud enough.

There is a 1 million dollar market spend against Manchin RIGHT NOW in WV to keep him vote from voting rights!


WTF ?!

Where is ours ?!

No, democrats are NOT doing the minimum when it comes to message mechanics so of course stupid shit like "6th grade lipstick police" get 3 seconds to distract the electorate.

[11 Bravo]

49. Fucking ridiculous.

This is the kind of bullshit that Repukes will beat us over the head with as long as we continue to provide them with such low-hanging fruit.

[Demsrule86]

50. I find this completely ridiculous...all the things wrong with this world and jingle bells is the

issue. It is not a good look for us...and will rile up parents for no reason.