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I'm Dreaming of a Racially Ambiguous Holiday Season Darius Rucker takes heat for singing “White Christmas” in the wake of the Eric Garner decision. By Christine Sisto Quick: If you had to pick one classic Christmas song that the thought police would deem racist, which would it be? If you said, “White Christmas,” congratulations!
The 82nd Annual Rockefeller Christmas Tree lighting last Wednesday was interrupted by protesters in the wake of the grand-jury decision to not indict an NYPD officer in the death of Eric Garner. The lighting went forward as planned, and Hootie & the Blowfish’s lead singer, Darius Rucker, sang Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.”
Although Rucker’s was a perfectly adequate performance, the song enraged some on social media. An African-American musician singing a song that had the word “white” in it, despite the word’s referring to snow and not skin color, so close to the Eric Garner decision was apparently offensive enough that many felt the need to sound off on Twitter.
Although Rucker has not officially commented on the “controversy,” he did retweet this message from a fan:
Every holiday season, the Left seems to find a new way to spoil everyone’s fun. National Review readers may remember the war on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which is apparently about date rape. If “White Christmas” is a white-supremacist anthem, then America must be extremely racist, as the version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time.
This year, when my family gathers around the piano to sing this classic together, I will be sure to remind them to change the lyrics to, “I’m dreaming of a racially ambiguous holiday season . . .”
— Christine Sisto is an editorial associate at National Review Online.
