goal of inspiring Black people and showing models of success. Both publications featured uplifting content relevant to black people, and clothed cover models, but Players featured seductive images, sexual icons, a centerfold, and three-to-four page spreads. Ebony also released annual swimsuit issues but the pictures could hardly be considered racy. Colorism in Players The content of Players brings to mind Mireille Miller-Young's 1980's research on the adult entertainment industry A Taste for Brown Sugar primarily "Colorism and the Myth of Prohibition". She writes about colorism through its link to the antebellum era. At this time the "trade in black women as sexual slaves ... was known for prizing very light-skinned black women." They were valued for their proximity to whiteness but also fit stereotypes involving sexuality—being seen as exotic or sexually aggressive. Miller-Young also mentions another magazine marketed to black consumers, Jet, that highlighted primarily lighter-skinned models on its covers. This colorism blocks opportunities for the diversity found among black women to be seen as desirable and reinforces the politics within pornography and the sex media. While there are instances of Players magazine portraying colorist tendencies, for the most part, it was productive in showing the wide range of hair types, skin colors, and body types of black women, setting it apart from mainstream white sex media. Change in Content Over Time The creative direction that Players reached for in their content often changed. Whereas "by the mid-1970s, Holloway House Publishing and Players had developed an effective formula for publishing black material, Morriss and Weinstock created specific rules, dictating the kind of texts that could be published in Players. Stories about African American history, black politics, international black issues, or African American arts such as sculpture or painting were prohibited. In their minds the only marketable black material was 'authentic ghetto literature'." Players formula grew so strict that it included explicit rules surrounding acceptable, publishable content. "[Players] could never publish any story about blacks in history ... No stories about the slave trade. No stories about emancipation. No stories about blacks in history at all ... no stories about Jamaica's Trenchtown, or South Africa, or apartheid ... You can do stories about music, but not about these arts that no one is interested in. Paintings, sculpture, and classical jazz ... No stories about politics". This strict policy on content later fell as Emory Holmes gained access to content as editor