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Valentine’s Day cards reflect the cultural context at the time and, in times of racism, cards punned and joked with racial stereotypes.  We’ve collected examples featuring American Indians and Asians, here’s our selection of racist cards with Africans and African Americans.  Trigger warning for grotesque caricature and violence.

Cards via Hearts Atwirl and Buzzfeed.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

We previously posted a series of Valentine’s Day cards featuring Native Americans. They aren’t the only racial group to be caricatured in cards, though. Carrie S. sent in this vintage Valentine, found at Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century, that presents a stereotyped Asian character (doing laundry even!), complete with mangled English:

I was able to locate more Asian-themed racist vintage Valentine’s Day cards at Buzzfeed:

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

While Americans began celebrating Valentine’s Day in the early 1700s, it wasn’t until the 1840s that it became a commercial holiday complete with mass-produced Valentine’s-themed goods.

Greeting cards, candy, flowers, and jewelry are Valentine’s-Day-Approved gifts and are among the most frequently gifted items (along with stuffed animals and perfume/cologne):

Contrary to stereotypes, the majority of men say they would love to receive flowers for Valentine’s Day:

Alas, 21% of them have never been so blessed:

This may upset primarily the young:

But, of course, they have the greatest chance of one day having their dreams come true.

What I’m saying is:  “Go ahead! Buy your man some daisies!”

For more on Valentine’s Day, visit this fun graphic (via Chart Porn).

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

…asks Bryant Gumbel as he, Katie Couric, and an unnamed co-host try to decipher the @ symbol and figure out what “email” is in the aftermath of an earthquake in 1994.  It’s a precious and hilarious peek into a moment that changed the world forever.

Found at Buzzfeed.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Iconic Photos documents at least two instances in which the U.S. postal service rewrote history, so to speak, taking smoking out of the stamp:

Pollack and Johnson are important figures in American history, who smoked before it carried the stigma it carries today, and whose smoking represents the time and culture that inspired their genius.  How do you balance the desire to be historically accurate and true to the individual, with the desire to avoid endorsing a habit newly framed as a social problem?

Via BoingBoing.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Meant to reveal the unbearable whiteness of the TV show Friends, this video by The DocFuture Show, is a pretty hilarious account of all of the black characters to ever grace the screen alongside the cast. It’s, um, funny:

Via BoingBoing.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

A  number of readers, including Mickey C., Lu Fong (writer and editor at The Good Men Project and Good Feed), Cheryl S., and Kelly V., let us know about Google Ngram. The program includes a database of a little over 5 million books and allows you to graph the frequency with which various words or phrases show up in books published in various languages over time (English can also be broken down into British or American English). Mickey and Lu each graphed the words “men” and “women” (see Lu’s discussion here):

Cheryl S. tried “shameful divorce” vs. “amicable divorce”:

The plateaus are due to smoothing, which presents the data as 3-year averages to reduce huge spikes and valleys from individual data points to make overall trends more apparent. You can change the level of smoothing. Here’s the graph with no smoothing at all:

Overall, the tool provides a way to track changes in language as well as social trends. Google provides some info on their methodology, though not as much as I’d like. Some key points:

1. They “normalize” the results based on the number of books published each year, to account for the fact that many more books are published each year now than in, say, 1800, so 100 occurrences of a phrase today means less than 100 occurrences then — that’s why results are presented as percentages, not as raw numbers.

2. Phrases have to appear in at least 40 books total to be included in the database.

3. Keep in mind, the dataset is not based on all books published, but of a subset of books digitized by Google Books. The database includes about 4% of all published books, according to a journal article just published in Science.

I suspect it will be an amazing time-killer.

Abbotsford, Wisconsin’s Mark Prior posted a sign reading “NO NEGRO’S ALLOWED” sign [sic] at the entrance to his strip club.  From the story at NBC (via Racialicious):

“Our mistake is sometimes we look for logic in something that is just plain stupid,” says Dr. Selika Ducksworth-Lawton, an African American historian at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Meanwhile, in Hayden, Idaho, Mark Eliseuson celebrated the first snow with a KKK snowman, complete with noose.  According to KTLA News, Eliseuson took down the snowman after being told that he could be charged with a “nuisance”:

(Thanks to Dmitriy T.M. for the tip off.)

See also our post on race-themed parties at colleges and universities and our post on The Compton Cookout.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.