I published a post this week about Joy Reid sharing with her Instagram followers a video of a man claiming that the Christmas carol "Jingle Bells" was racist, with "its origins in bigoted minstrel shows that were popular at the time." James Lord Pierpont, who is believed to have penned the song in 1850, did so "expressly for its use in performances in which white actors put on blackface to 'mock and caricature black people trying to participate in winter activities.'” The video further alleges that the lyrics “laughing all the way” in the song “likely” is a reference to a racist comedic routine of the day known as the “Laughing Darkie.”
But now I'm getting reports that the origins of the song come before minstrel shows, directly from slavery. I checked to see if Zoom Afrika was a parody account, but it's real. It's apparently not a fan of Christmas or Christianity.
The purpose of Christianity in Africa is to spread white supremacy, mental slavery and racism. pic.twitter.com/bahwfSxc0x
— Zoom Afrika (@zoomafrika1) December 13, 2025
Anyway, here is the real origin of "Jingle Bells."
This is the real Jingle Bell.
— Zoom Afrika (@zoomafrika1) December 12, 2025
Many Africans celebrate it during Christmas, often singing the popular song Jingle Bells.
However, history tells a painful story: these bells were once placed on African ancestors to prevent their escape. If anyone tried to flee during the night,… pic.twitter.com/sI6KGKgba5
The post continues:
… the sound of the bells made it easier for dogs and captors to track them.
Today, Africans sing and celebrate this song alongside the descendants of colonialists, often unaware that it symbolizes the suffering endured by our ancestors
Assuming that's true, I still don't get how we get from that to the song. Whoever's behind Zoom Afrika said they weren't surprised that Community Notes were proposed to go with the post:
The song "Jingle Bells," written in 1857 by James Lord Pierpont as "One Horse Open Sleigh," celebrates sleigh bells on horse-drawn sleighs during winter festivities in Massachusetts and has no connection to bells used on enslaved Africans to prevent escape.
One of the citations behind the proposed Community Note is an article on History titled, "8 Things You Might Not Know About ‘Jingle Bells.’" Thing No. 7 is that "the song might have been first performed in blackface."
The song isn't performed in blackface anymore (sorry, Justin Trudeau and Ralph Northam), and absolutely no one thinks about race at all when hearing it. As Zoom Afrika reports, today, Africans sing this song alongside the descendants of colonialists, unaware that the jingle bells are a reference to slavery.
This is one of the most heartbreaking things I’ve learned this year. We’ve been singing a slave tracker’s bell song every Christmas without knowing…
— B.S.A (@irepbdg_) December 12, 2025
Never singing Jingle Bells the same way again. Mind blown and heart broken.
“Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” isn’t just a playful song, it recalls a cultural memory of the antebellum South… A dark Christmas Eve tradition of forcing slaves to stand around a decorated evergreen while the white enslavers children hurled stones at them
— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) December 13, 2025
The first child… https://t.co/RC2HriRTWd
"The first child to record a kill received an extra present under the tree on Christmas morning."
I suppose this is the sort of history they tried to rip from public school curricula by banning critical race theory. Even President Barack Obama was unaware of the carol's history, singing it at the White House Christmas tree lighting ceremony in 2016.
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