[quote=pri_dk][quote=ocrenter]I do agree it is not the prototypical southern state. [/quote]

I agree Florida is culturally different than say Mississippi or Alabama – certainly more ethnically diverse.

But Florida was part of the Confederacy, which is the standard definition of the American “south.” And pre civil war it had an economy heavily dependent on slavery, which is the root of racial tension in America.[/quote]

That part of Florida that identifies culturally with the South is principally north of Gainesville and through the Panhandle. If you asked a sample of residents south of Gainesville whether they had more in common culturally with Georgia or California/North East… the majority would answer the latter. I don’t think there’s any more racial tension in Florida than there is in, say, California. The same cannot be said of much of the rest of the South.