A History of “Black & Inter-racial Videos”

Porn and Hollywood film history from people who never thought anyone would be paying attention

Recently I heard from a feminist PhD candidate who is looking into the history of black actresses in porn.

To my amazement, she'd discovered that a million years ago (1986!) I'd written a story about the phenomenon of "black and inter-racial" videos in the porn biz for Adult Video News. She asked me if I could dig up a copy from my pre-Internet porn archives.

In traditional porn parlance, "inter-racial" used to imply "Black and White people." Period. It’s really out of date. So many phrases in the business sound like another century. "Black" sex movies were a tiny niche that were primarily sold to regional markets; no one talked about them.

All the directors of these films, at that time, were white— often people who dreaded their assignment:

Drea remembers her astonishment when she found out that a lot of her viewing audience assumed that she was black. In fact, Drea is a blonde who grew up in a  segregated Chicago neighborhood. She remembers, "When Harold Washington first got elected (Chicago's first black mayor), my father was going to get a gun and shoot himself."

"After every black video I'd make," says Drea, "I'd always say, 'I'll never shoot another Black video again. Never.'"

And that’s just the directors.