For Valentine’s Day, NPR reporter Shereen Marisol Meraji looked at race in love songs. In her words:

“You don’t hear pop stars crooning about miscegenation these days. But, as we know, coupling up across racial and ethnic lines is happening now more than ever. The 2010 census showed that interracial and inter-ethnic married couples grew by nearly 30 percent in 10 years.

So if pop music is a reflection of the issues of the day, why aren’t we bobbing our heads and shaking our hips to more songs with lyrics about cross-cultural lovin’?”

Here’s the story (text and audio link): http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2014/02/14/276782537/pop-music-lags-dealing-with-interracial-love-anxieties?sc=17&f=3