So technically Florida is south of the south, somehow managing largely to avoid some of the continued racial turmoil the true south still suffers from. Except, while that all sounds good and dandy, it isn’t always true. In fact, we’ve covered lots of instances where the state, and the tampabay.com commenting public, sits squarely along southern racist party lines.

I’m sort of shocked that a press conference yesterday announced that we’re fixin’ to replace our racist state song, Old Folks at Home (more commonly known by the first line: The Swanee River). Well how about them apples?! Aren’t we just forward thinking and progressive! Unfortunately the 3 contenders fighting to replace it sound like a bad joke. Check them out for yourself here. Is this really the best people could come up with? How’d they pick these 3? Who the hell are the people that wrote them? Tell us more, press release:

Songwriters were encouraged to submit songs reflective of Florida. On October 1, 2007, 243 entries had been collected. A panel of six judges, experts in the music field, scored the entries in a process similar to The Grammy Awards. There were two evaluation periods. The first resulted in the top 20 and the second resulted in the top three.

Riiiight, just like the Grammys. Because, you know, if you say it was like the Grammys then our 3 choices must undoubtedly kick ass, right? I mean, they’re like the Grammys! Le sigh. Oh well, at least we get to vote to choose the one that sucks the least. And for the record, I’m going with Florida, My Home.

So back to the racist nature of the current state song. First scope the lyrics, then check out these fun facts:

• Stephen Foster wrote the song in 1851 to be performed by a troupe of “blackface” entertainers known as the Christy’s Minstrels (who paid the amazing sum of $15,000 for the rights to use it).
• Stephen Foster not only wasn’t from Florida, he never visited it once.
• In 1978 the chorus was changed from “Oh, darkeys, how my heart grows weary” to “Oh, brothers.”
• In addition to darkies, the song extols the virtues of the ol’ plantation and comically exaggerates (as only a white man can) African-American vernacular.