Many of us have heard about the number one date rapist song of the year, ” Baby Its Cold Outside.” Man, that song was made for jokes, but there isn’t nothing funny about date rape, so I’m going to leave that right there. Who was James Lord Pierpont? Pierpont wrote the song we have all sanged since we was able to belt out a tune in school, ” Jingle Bells.” Yep, that ole Miss Fletcher’s favorite.. “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way..” Mrs Fletcher was my second grade teacher. You might be thinking how in the “focus” does he remember that? He’s older than grape soda. Nope, I did not have a fixation on my “at least 60 year old,” second grade teacher. I have a class picture of myself when I was in the second grade.. so there now. Anyway, back to the story. I’m just going to throw this in there because I want you to put it on a sidebar. James was the uncle of “JP Morgan.” In today’s money, JP would be worth about $50 billion. Are you still wondering why “Jingle Bells was a world wide hit? Anywhoooo, while Pierpont wrote many songs in his career, including a little diddy about his stint during the California Rush, he also wrote a lot of minstrels. Minstrel songs and the minstrel genre exploited racial stereotypes and racially stereotypical language. During the mid 19th century you could make a lot of money making fun of Blacks, Chinese and Indians. It was kinda easy because the laws prevented every one except whites from entering playhouses, bars, hotels, barbershops, bathrooms, stores, walking on sidewalks, riding horses, looking at white women, owning firearms, carrying a knife, looking a white man in the eyes, not showing proper respect, greeting another black man with “what’s up brother,” picking yo teeth, scratching yo head, grabbing yo Johnson or acting like you bout it, bout it… any violation of any of this shjt could put you in a dirt blanket in the blink of an eye…. On Mother….
Anyway, lets get on with it. Although Jingle Bells wasn’t in itself racist, the creator of the song probably was. Pierpont now remarried after his first wife had passed away, move to Savannah Georgia and at the beginning of the Civil War, joined the Lamar Rangers which became part of the Fifth Georgia Cavalry of the Confederacy. Although according to records Pierpont never picked up a gun, records indicate that he served as a company clerk, you got to know he did not have any love for General Sherman, who went thru Georgia like diarrhea and hot peppers. I don’t know about Georgia, but Mississippi didn’t celebrate the 4th of July until 70 years after the Civil War. The hate was real down there. In 1852, just just nine years before the Civil War, Pierpont wrote, “The Returned Californian.” Here is one of the stanza’s:
“If of these United States I was the President,
No man that owed another should ever pay a cent;
And he who dunn’d another should be banished far away,
And attention to the pretty girls is all a man should pay.”
As a descendant of slaves, I know all too well how slaves owners co opted us, not only do I know, but it’s been well documented over the last 600 years. Am I going to join the chorus and start agreeing to banning songs and lyrics because I don’t like them, or they broach a particular subject I find distasteful.. no. That’s a very slippery slope. The people calling for the demise of song, literature or idea’s because they don’t agree with it, cannot prevail. If we allow anyone to silence our intellectual freedoms, be prepared to don the yoke of submission, for the road of slavery will lie before us all.
Be the first to comment