I would like to publicly apologize to the state of New Jersey.

I am sorry.

To its governor, Chris Christie, its U.S. senators Bob Menendez and Cory Booker, its citizens, police officers, firefighters, teachers, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, construction workers, small business owners and families.

To its hockey team, the New Jersey Devils, its art museums, its halls of fame (among them, the New Jersey Inventor’s Hall of Fame and the New Jersey Women’s Hall of Fame), its gardens, its more than two million acres of forestland, its miles of coastline, Atlantic City and the largest theme park in the world, Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township.

To the people New Jersey has shared with the rest of the world, including singer/actor Frank Sinatra, rocker Bruce Springsteen, singer/rapper Lauren Hill, cartoonist Charles Addams, rap producer Just Blaze, actress Meryl Streep, actor Peter Dinklage, astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, poet William Carlos Williams, actor/producer Danny DeVito, filmmaker Kevin Smith, actress Eva Marie Saint, singer/actress Queen Latifah and rock band My Chemical Romance.

I am sorry and I apologize.

You see, I’ve never been to New Jersey, but I’ve watched “Jersey Shore,” MTV’s reality show that ran for six seasons.

“Jersey Shore” followed around a group of people as they gym’d, tanned, laundered, drank, and fought together throughout the Jersey Shore summer.

There was an outcry against the show from New Jersey residents who said the show didn’t reflect the real New Jersey.

Now, Valdosta has its own reality show: “Hot GRITS (Girls Raised In The South).”

The show follows around six women around Valdosta: Emily, Bear, Jenna, Ratchet, Sarah and Hailey.

In the first episode — which aired Wednesday and is available on VH1’s website — the girls drink by the lake, go to the bar, head to a family barbecue, argue about relationships, and trick a girl into eating hairy raccoon meat.

It’s not reality, of course, but being upset about that is to misunderstand the nature of reality shows.

Five minutes of Googling “reality show confessions” will turn up a laundry list of reality TV show stars talking about made-up story lines and selective editing.

They present an exaggerated, hyperbolic reality, taking real-life elements and stretching them into a kind of fun-house mirror reflection.

A kind of drunk reality, if you will.

The first episode, “How to Lose a Guy in Valdosta,” is an odd mix of sober reality and drunk fiction.

Ratchet talks with her dad about the possibility of having to move back in with him — a conversation many millennials can relate to — and is then offered a raccoon dinner seconds later.

Sarah kicks out her abusive ex (Go, Sarah!), but 10 minutes later is mooning the rest of her friends with him on the lake (No, Sarah!) as everyone laughs.

I’m not sure how to feel about the show and its Fictitious Valdosta.

I’ve got no problem laughing at myself and where I live, but I’ve got a problem with “Hot GRITS” becoming how the rest of the world forms their opinions about Valdosta and Valdostans (my own reality show idea, “Young Professionals Work Their Way Through A Slowly Recovering Economy In The South,” or YPWTWTASREITS, has sadly never been picked up).

No doubt, “Hot GRITS” will come up in conversation with people not from Valdosta and I’m going to shake my head, roll my eyes, explain how reality television works and invite them to Valdosta to see for themselves what it’s like.

Here’s what I’m not going to do: insult, shame or otherwise disparage the six women that form the main cast, their friends, their husbands, their boyfriends or their families — fictional or otherwise.

(I am, however, going to have to criticize the show’s producers for setting a “reality” show in Valdosta and having no black cast members, as black Valdostans make up 51.2 percent of Valdosta’s population, according to the 2010 census).

Insulting the cast would be hypocritical of me.

After all, I can’t say I wouldn’t be tempted to take a job that paid me to sit around at the lake, go out to dinner and swap one-liners with fictional and/or actual friends.

Even if it meant that, much like the cast members of “Jersey Shore,” I was going to be mocked across the country, even more so if the show comes back for a second season, even more than that if it proves to be a hit.