Man things are really getting WILD around here. All of the sudden half the paper is full of state song lyrics, new and old. Things are not quite set in stone yet, but it looks like we are getting improved lyrics to our old state song, a brand new state song that is nothing like the old song, and for those who just can't let go, there will be an option to continue to use the old state song with the original old lyrics as the state song.
Pretty complicated setup, considering that we're dealing with state songs here. But us Florida folks will adjust. We are good like that.
So here's how the whole thing started:
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A year or so ago, someone discovered that our state song that was fine for like a hundred years or so, may be offensive to people of color. (You know, black people)
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Then the newspapers and local news shows started getting people all riled up, and shortly after The Movement began. Things began to get organized and soon there was a statewide contest for the best new state song. The plan at that time was to just totally rip out the old state song and replace it with the contest winner. The winner of the contest was a school teacher who wrote a song called "Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky". Sawgrass grows at the edge of swamps and in fields and some other places. Sawgrass is some thick, tough stuff. Blades of sawgrass are typically about 3 or 4 feet long, and lined with tiny razor like barbs. There are stories of people, usually drunk or stoned, walking into a patch of sawgrass, getting all cut up, and ending up bleeding to death and being carried off into the swamp by gators. However, as far a I know "Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky" is pretty tame, and doesn't really deal with death by sawgrass. As a matter of fact, I don't think there is anything about any type of death at all in "Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky". I think that's why it won the contest.
- Then of course came the Counter Movement with the preserve-our-history people and the Daughters of the Confederacy and all those types. They fought hard, and someone came up with a compromise song, basically the old song with more modern, less racially insensitive lyrics. So now everyone is pretty much satisfied with the state song situation and the streets are a little more safe when the sun goes down.
So what is so offensive about the old song? Well, first of all the whole song is done in "slave dialect". ( "Way down upon de Swanee Ribber, Far, far away, Dere's wha my heart is turning ebber,
Dere's wha de old folks stay.")
And also the chorus of the song has the word "darkie" in it. And "darkie", in case you were not aware, is a derogatory word for black folks.
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