The recent controversy with the inclusion of "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" in a school recital seems to have focused on two facts:
-the association of cotton picking with Black American slavery [notwithstanding the fact that some enslaved Black people never picked cotton, and nonwithstanding the fact that some White people still have memories of picking cotton]
-the song's uptempo tune seems to minimize the backbreaking work associated with picking cotton, and play into the widely grinning Stepin Fetchit pickinniny stereotype promoted by slavery apologista.
I want to speak to the second point and suggest that the "Oh Lordy!" phrase in the refrain "Oh Lordy, pick a bale of cotton/Oh Lordy! pick a bale a day" is what turns me off.
I see this as an example of Black slave dialect or old downhome expressions that-if included in songs-are liable to get contemporary Black folks riled up.
Someone on that "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" thread reminded me that African American R&B singer Little Richard had a hit song "Lordy Miss Claudy" [in the late 1950s?]. I believe another African American R&B singer Lloyd Price also recorded this song {Lordy Miss Clawdy} maybe before Little Richard did. But that was then, and this is now. After all the 1950s is more than 50 years ago.
And-in my opinion, those "Lordy! Lordy!" expressions are likely to be interpreted as being too country [with "country" rightly or wrongly being seen as less than "citified].
Songs that explore the country hick vs sophisticated city resident are a whole nother area of consideration for folklorists. But for the purpose of this thread what I'm suggesting is that it's not only songs and literature that is written in Black slavery dialect but it's also the inclusion of certain Black "downhome" expressions that can get a person in trouble.