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An upstate New York school district has pulled the classic winter tune “Jingle Bells” from the music curriculum at an elementary school over concerns that it may have first been performed in Boston at a minstrel show in which white performers donned blackface. On December 23, the Rochester Beacon first reported that the Brighton Central School District nixed James L. Pierpont’s song from the curriculum at Council Rock Primary School. The school’s principal Matt Tappon told the Rochester Beacon via email that it was being replaced with tunes without “the potential to be controversial or offensive.” Officials with the district,...

According to the school’s diversity page, there were songs that had been previously used that had a questionable past. One of the examples the school listed was “Jingle Bells.” The school noted that other questionable songs were removed from the curriculum and “are no longer in our repertoire, and are replaced with more contemporary, and relevant content.” The Beacon reports that the school’s decision was based on a 2017 article written by Boston University Professor Kyna Hamill. Hamill alleged she had found documents proving the song had first been performed publicly at a minstrel show in 1857. When told of...

Brighton, N.Y. (WHAM) - It's arguably one of the most popular holiday songs in the world, however, it will no longer be sung at Council Rock Elementary in Brighton. First reported by the online publication, the Rochester Beacon, the school has decided to remove 'Jingle Bells' from it's repertoire due to the song's 'questionable past'. The Rochester Beacon says principal Matt Tappon confirmed the song, and several others, have been replaced with different songs that don't have the "potential to be controversial or offensive." The article says a factor in the decision was research published in 2017 by Boston University...

Huh. Recently moved to new home. Much more space and huge tv to put synthesia on! :D Long story short - I somehow got tired of the same Christmas songs every year, so I tried to make a sweet twist to the Jingle Bells turning into something like depressive Christmas version. Hope you guys like it! :)

“Jingle Bells,” one of the most well-known Christmas carols in the world, is now being called racist. A Boston University theater professor claims the Christmas carol has a “problematic history” because it was originally performed to make fun of African Americans. “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.” “Although ‘One Horse Open Sleigh,’ for most of its singers and listeners, may have eluded its racialized past...

Remember back in 1970, when you heard that (horrible to some) rendition of “Jingle Bells” by the Singing Dogs? Well, you may not realize this, but those dogs got their start about 15 years earlier, in 1955. “Jingle Bells” was originally part of a medley of tunes sung by the Dogs, beginning with “Pat-A-Cake”, “Three Blind Mice”, and then “Jingle Bells”. The 1955 RCA Victor release also included the effects of a carniv(or)al to showcase their talent, including that of a carnival barker. The record was complemented with a faithful (well, as faithful as could be expected) rendition of Stephen...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A massive winter storm blanketed the US West Coast with snow, sleet and ice early Monday while blizzards and snow squalls struck the Northeast and Midwest, killing at least four people and making travel dangerous. The storm snarled holiday air traffic across the country, with delays at major airports in San Francisco; Houston, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; New Jersey and New York, officials said. The fierce weather was blamed for the death of two people in a single-vehicle crash on Interstate Highway 80 east of Des Moines, Iowa. Another weather-related fatality was reported in northwest Iowa when a...