While today, we {hopefully} know that racism is bad, beating your wife is never a good idea, the same can’t be said of folks in the not-so-recent past. 

Just take a look at these vintage ads and articles touting spousal abuse, all sorts of racial stereotypes, and messages about young girls that only a newly-appointed Attorney General could love. 

From the New York Post's most infamous cover to the white woman who walked so Nkechi Amare Diallo (a.k.a. Rachel Dolezal) could run, here are 23 awful vintage ads ad headlines that feel illegal to read.