Fox News Attacked My Video About the Racist Origins of "Jingle Bells." They Proved My Point.

This week, Fox News came for me. They published an article lambasting my work, posted it across their social media accounts, and convened a panel of hosts to discuss it on live television. The subject? A video I made about the origins of “Jingle Bells” in blackface minstrelsy which has racked up millions of views and tens of thousands of comments.

This right-wing backlash was sparked when former MSNBC host Joy Reid shared my video to her 1.3 million Instagram followers. Fox’s response, framed as opposition to Joy Reid’s repost of my content, has since reached millions and also driven mass engagement.

I read through those comments, and though impossible to confirm, I’d bet 99.99% of the responses do not engage with the historical research at all. Instead, they attack a straw man, a version of my argument that exists only in their headlines. The whole fiasco reveals exactly how propaganda works, and how anti-intellectualism has become a reflex for millions of Americans.

I’m fighting to document hidden histories like this one before conservatives can bully academics and intellectuals into submission.

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The Pavlovian Response

Scroll through the comments on Fox’s posts, and you will find a remarkably consistent pattern:

“A true racist will find racism in everything.”

“We know that the people who keep saying racist, are the real racists!”

“Good grief! What isn’t racist to that woman???”

“Let’s stop making her relevant.”

These are conditioned responses, not counterarguments. Like Pavlov’s dogs salivating at a bell, these commenters have been trained to attack the moment they hear that something, anything, has been called racist. Millions of people have been so thoroughly conditioned that they will reject documented historical facts without a moment’s investigation, and instead let pundits do their thinking for them.

Whether the claim is true, or the evidence is overwhelming, none of that matters. The word itself triggers the response, and the response is always the same: deny, deny, deny.

Honestly, it’s more sad than anything else. These are people so brainwashed,