Why Pecola?

Toni Morrison writes like a woman who has braided God's hair. After all, not everyone would be trusted with her vision and the ability to shame the devil like she can.

When I first read her novel, The Bluest Eye, I wanted to write and cry at the same time.

The main character, Pecola Breedlove, is a young, black girl with dark skin and a bad case of low self esteem. Hurt people, hurt her on so many different levels, and she was forced to spend her entire life wishing her blackness away. In her brown eyes, beauty came only in the form of blue eyes and white skin.

This is an all too familiar story. Colonization and years of white dominance has created many Pecola's throughout this world.

With The Pecola Project, I'd like to change that and I'm collaborating with a diverse group of beautiful and talented women who are interested in doing the same. Using the arts (especially, theater and the written word) as a catalyst for social change, We are determined to create provocative work that places our needs front and center.

We will hit the block (literally) engaging the community around topics such as sexual violence, Booty Shots-The Remix, the color complex, misrepresentation in the media, and any other thing we (and/or the community) feel needs to be highlighted.

By showing up in all our blackness (we range from high yella to deep blue undertones) & wearing the hair that God gave us (and sometimes not), we will be representing for the girls and women who have been ignored, devalued, and sometimes silenced.

We are also representing for the ones who know that they are amazing and will pass that goodness on to their children and/or the next generation of women warriors.

There's much work to be done, yet we honor and give thanks for the women in our communities who have been working long before we got here.

Now it's our turn.

We Are Not Afraid. The Street Is Our Pulpit.