In Conversation With: Aaron Parry

Graduate student, artist, graphic designer, writer, and business owner Aaron Parry discusses his role in promoting a fuller Black experience. Transcription by Adeola Egbeyemi.

Angelo: So, do you want to tell everybody a bit about your undergrad — what you were studying, the minor?

Aaron: I was majoring in Anthropology and Indigenous Studies and minoring in African and African Diaspora studies. So a lot of my coursework and class was on studying colonization, critical race theory, and contemporary issues impacting BIPOC communities. My thesis focused on Black connections to the environment in Canada and ways to reconnect with nature and Indigenous land in a new way. I think my degree was very Indigenous-focused, since that was my major, but obviously I have such an interest in connecting to Black issues, and my whole degree was looking for parallels between Indigenous experiences and the Black experience in North America and across the world - seeing the intersections that happen through our history, our connections to the land, our relationship with colonization. 

Angelo: So, through your Indigenous studies did you learn anything about yourself?

Aaron: I think that I had to wrap my head around that a lot - a lot of the classes had a very Indigenous-settler binary and I was always just like, “If we were brought here against our will, are we really settlers, and can you really lump me in with the white allies in the classroom and in these discussions?” I think that I’ve thought about this to a ridiculous amount, more than people would need to, but just being in the atmosphere where you’re constantly thinking about the facts that you’re on land that’s not your own and you’re in classes that aren't about your own identity—that’s okay. It’s not like you’re in a class where they’re only teaching white history—you’re in a class where they’re teaching you history that's been neglected, so it's important to be there, but you’re also thinking, like “Should I feel guilt toward everything that's happened? Should I be the one working on reconciliation with Indigenous communities? Is this my job? Is this white people’s job?” I realized that it is my job in part, but I had different responsibilities than my white classmates, and I had my own responsibilities to my own community. 

It strengthened my dedication to find my community, in terms of Black folks at Mac and finding the minor and everything, because I realized I was working towards something that was for someone else. I definitely don’t reject any of the time I spent there, I’m still involved with stuff, but I kind of understood that I needed to re-weigh where I was putting my efforts, because it was definitely unbalanced in terms of feeling like I was being responsible to my own community and my people.

McMaster Black Students Association, 2019-2020 Executive Team

Angelo: What you were mentioning before in terms of recognizing our responsibilities to other communities - that was a big thing for me. I feel like I started off coming into university out of high school thinking, “Oh I just have a responsibility to the Black community,” you know what I mean? But as I experienced more things, I came into contact with more people, and I realized even my image of what the Black community was, was not necessarily reality. 

Aaron: Yeah. 

Angelo: Our community intersects with so many other identities. Black people in Palestine. You have to think about feminism, homophobia, these things all go on and are a part of our own community. I think that was a big learning point for me the past couple of years. It sounds like you’re going to be doing some work, I guess, with that kind of stuff? 

Aaron: Yeah, I think that's how and what I’m going towards. I think a lot of people forget about the fact that you can care about and shed light on issues impacting other communities and you can be pro-Black. You don’t only have to focus on Black issues and things impacting the Black community to be pro-Black. It's a very intersectional way of looking at things. Think about the way that we intersect with a bunch of other groups and even just baseline looking at the fact that the Black experience and the oppression tied to that is so similar to the experiences of so many other groups regardless of the fact of race, religion, sexuality, gender. That baseline is pro-Black to look at and be compassionate about the experiences of others that reflect your own.

It’s the same thing for Black queer people. Black queer people exist, even though a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge that. Black trans people exist, and if you’re going to be pro-Black and care about your community, you can’t pick and choose which kin you're going to care about.

Compassion is not finite. There’s enough to go around. We’re not going to run out. It’s fair that we have to balance time.

Angelo: Yeah exactly, it’s just humanity. Humanity is being compassionate. We can't forget that. A lot of the time Black people mirror our oppressors in that we’re only going to look out for ourselves. We can’t really take that route, in my opinion. We always love to use the “nobody’s free, ‘till everyone’s free”, you know what I mean, for our own selves to get people to care about our issues, but we have a responsibility to other people. It comes back to humanity. 

Aaron: I totally agree. What you said about what we do as Black people, it’s definitely true. The problem is only focusing on one narrative or one experience. I think the most common one is focusing solely on experiences of straight, cis Black men. There’s more than just race-based oppression—the experiences of Black women alone… I know a lot of Black men love to say “Yeah, protect Black women” but are they thinking about how they contribute to the issues sometimes? We can’t just treat “protect my queen” as a saying. The patriarchy and its implications on how we act as men, fathers, brothers, friends, is very pervasive and can be unconscious a lot of the time. That’s the thing I’ve had to look into myself a lot, and now that I have, it’s changing the way I understand things, listen to people, and approach my work. It’s humanity. You, unconsciously sometimes, only look at your own experiences. We can’t keep neglecting identities because they don’t fit into the cookie cutter box that reflects our own stories. If you are Black and a man and are not actually consciously acknowledging the privilege you have within your community, you could be messing up in ways that you’re not even considering. You have to be cognizant of it on a daily basis. 

Aaron Parry, All Eyez On U, 2021. Featured in PITCH Magazine Issue Two

The thing that frustrates me the most is that we have so many issues impacting our community, we need to address these things we have control over. We have no control over anti-Blackness in white society. We can try to fight it as much as we can. It’s very difficult to change those issues when it’s not us that’s the problem. So it frustrates me when we identify issues that we as a community are perpetuating and can solve, but are not doing that. We can control how we treat Black queer people in the Black community. But we can think that we don’t have a responsibility to dismantle behaviours within ourselves because we face oppression. You are doing the same thing to members of your community.

Angelo: It keeps me up at night thinking about how we get it started. Do you think it’ll get better at all?

Aaron: Honestly, I can't even say if things are getting better. I think the positive force right now is awareness, although I don’t think it’s an answer to everything. Some people are hearing about these things. There were centuries where people did not have to hear about the negative experiences of Black people. Like what’s happening in Palestine right now - you are literally faced with, “now what are you going to do?” That’s kind of one of the blessings of social media, it brings people face to face with what’s happening around the world.

Angelo: Even for us, we have the opportunity to look at ourselves now. I don’t know if you know Mutabaruka. He has a line that goes “when I was younger I thought Egypt was a place in the sky.”

Aaron: Wow. 

Angelo: Now we have access to information to learn about ourselves, our own histories, I think social media can be good, it is taxing sometimes. 

Aaron: I need to re-wire my brain to not use it all the time. As soon as another case of police acting up or something happens, I’m like “delete”. I don’t have time to be debating people, I have a responsibility to myself, my family and my community. I am allowed to take breaks. 

Angelo: I’ve never actually deleted, but I might have to start doing that. For me, you feel like you have a responsibility to share stuff, engage in things. You’re doing your own work everyday, that’s fine.

It doesn’t really make sense to me. Social media … these things come in waves. People care about something for a season, a couple weeks, and it's on to the next one. That isn’t sustainable. We can’t use social media as a gauge for anything.

Do you want to talk about what you are working on with Dr. Coleman?

Aaron: Yeah, we are essentially creating a one stop shop for Black history in Hamilton. It’s basically a resource for the community, and we’re still trying to work out the format, online or in-person. If it gets to a safe enough place we can do work in archives and libraries. I did a deep dive looking at every source that relates to Black experiences in Hamilton.

And I know that saying Black history skews things and people might think I’m only going to focus on a few events, but I’ve been thinking about it as like “if I was looking at this website, 50 years from now, what I would want to look at -- backwards from today - acknowledges Black presence in Hamilton, negative or positive, and shows the contributions of our community to the greater Hamilton community.” I went through websites, journals, media, videos, films, music - I even did a deep dive of newspapers for a while, and I included articles about Emancipation Day 20 years ago. I have my own experience in terms of doing family history work and researching. I am constantly cognizant of the fact that I need to look at this and ask if someone would find this valuable in the future, and learn more about the Black experience. If yes, I put it in the database.

After that, I think we’re going to go into developing an online centre. Then we’ll have programming to highlight the information we’ve found. It’s not just books and archives, but people who are very prominent and important to Black history. The most interesting one I've learned about is… there’s a site called Griffin House in Dundas, it’s literally a house from the 1830s. It was owned by a formerly enslaved man in the United States who likely came to Canada by way of the Underground Railroad and then started his family in this predominantly white neighbourhood. And the house is still standing. It’s free to go and see. They have tours from July to August to see the interior. The rest of the year you can see the outside and walk the trails but not many people know about it or have gone there. 

I’m sure some people think that Black people have only been here since the big wave of immigration from the Caribbean of the 60s and 70s, but Black people have been here literally since the 1700s. I didn’t even take that in. We have hundreds of years of history here and it’s not even being talked about that much. So we’re trying to make a resource for the community to access it. It’s also to shut down people who are like “We would teach local black history but we don’t know where to find it”, and we can be like “Here you go.” Here you go. 

Angelo: I don’t know how many houses are going to be up from the 1800s. How many physical places are we still going to have ‘X’ amount of years from now. It’s important to have this archive so people know where they’re coming from. 

Aaron Parry, Our Embers, 2020

Aaron: I see it equally important to remember the mundane. The government is constantly selling and developing on land. If we aren't making landmarks, they are going to be taken away. You even see what happened with the Africville and a community was still living there. Imagine what would happen to a really old house that could be the perfect spot for a golf course or something. We need to be paying attention to the importance of these things so it can be here for another 200 years. 

It’s weird to think about a kid looking back on now, when we’re doing the same thing right now. I found so many things documenting the Black Lives Matter protests and I’m literally thinking about the fact that someone is going to look back at this and think of it like a historical moment. The same way we look back on protests as early as the 60s and 90s. 

Angelo: I’m even thinking about everybody at City Hall - Freedom Camp. That’s incredible to me. With the way things are going, you never know how things are set up in the future—will there be field trips to places documented in the archive, you know? You never know how people will be inspired, so it’s super important work. 

Aaron: Thank you. 

Angelo: So, you want to talk a little bit about the colouring book?

Aaron: So the Afro-Canadian Caribbean Association commissioned me to create an activity book for Black and non-Black children to document and make Black history more accessible to kids. It’s basically my second full-time job. Basically normalize Blackness in all its forms, so every kid has something they can take away from it.

Angelo: Sounds like fun. 

Aaron: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. It’s also difficult, I hope that kids like it. It feels like the most meaningful work I’ve done in terms of my art. Fingers crossed that it leaves kids a little more educated and happy than it found them. 

Angelo: That’s fire. So, continuing on the creative side, how did you get into creating artwork?

Aaron: I have been making art since I was four because my dad was actually an artist. I was taught by him since I was a little kid. It’s always been a mental health outlet for me and now I realize I can use it with my own interests in the community. 

I think that it’s just another medium to say what we need to say—normalize Black beauty and experience. It’s allowed me to learn more about myself, hone my skills. It’s the best when people from the community tell you that something really spoke to them.

Angelo: Yeah, yeah. Similar to the magazine, that’s the best response you can get. It made an impact on someone, they felt seen. It makes it feel that all the work you put into it was worth it. 

Aaron: People love PITCH! I didn’t even think about it for now, but PITCH was the first time that I’ve been public about the fact that I don’t talk to my mom. My mom is my Black parent and that’s what I had a lot of insecurity about, like someone is going to say something where my connection with the community is not completely rooted in that. I was always stressed about it. Even seeing it on the page, I don’t have to be ashamed about that. Your magazine gave me the ability to do that. I know it's done more for people who have never been published, or who have never seen themselves in the magazine. Same quality as V***E, and maybe even more important. It’s doing something for people. I love hearing about how many people love PITCH. Like, I’m friends with the owner. Getting the second hand clout. 

Angelo: I’m glad you submitted your pieces, man. When I read the piece I was like, this is just incredible, I need to have everyone see this. I know it’s done a lot for a lot of people. I was going to ask about poetry as well. Have you been writing poetry for a long time?

Aaron: I’ve been writing it from early university. It always comes back to mental health. People are like “Journal!” and I don’t want to do that. It works for some people. But I started writing poetry whenever I would have a spike in my emotions or something was particularly bothering me. It allowed me to find the proper words to embody what I’m going through. It did a lot for me and a lot of self-reflection. Most people didn't know I was doing it, but then I wrote “Mama” and I looked at it like, wow. I wrote it on my birthday. One of the lines is “Did you know it’s my birthday today?” It’s one of the things I actually think about. Does this person think about me, like today is the day they gave birth to me and I’m still on this planet here. And PITCH was accepting submissions - everyone knew me as the visual art guy - so I’m going to drop a bomb! 

Angelo: Curveball!

Aaron: And I picked the best one and the hardest one to write. If anyone asks me if I do poetry, I’d be like “Yeah to deal with my mental and emotional issues!”

Angelo: That’s dope, that’s really special man, you should keep it going. 

Aaron: Thank you. 

Angelo: It’s just like a release. Catharsis. You can put all these jumbled thoughts and express them in a creative way. It’s another way of getting things out. Poetry, art, music. It’s especially important for Black people because we go through a lot. I don’t know if that’s why we’re the most creative people, but it’s important for our community. 

Aaron: I think that’s also what, apart from the fact that it’s also stealing or done in bad taste, hurts the most when Black appropriation happens because it’s literally people taking something that we put our heart and soul into that came out of negative experiences, anger and frustration and people just try and re-do it, without the meaning. You don’t get it. There’s such a big gap of something that you put your sweat and tears into, and you’re doing it with a smile on your face. 

Aaron Parry, Drip, 2020. Featured in PITCH Magazine Issue Two

Angelo: I think this is why it’s important to have spaces by and for Black people. Whether it’s the magazine or the work you’re doing—we can relate to each other, to an extent, and what you’re expressing, people will understand what you’re going through. I think that has been really important and one of the motivations behind the magazine. I wanted to ask, who has inspired you to do what you do? 

Aaron: I think, baseline, I can say my friends are the ones that inspire me the most - seeing the work they do and trying to match their energy. My friends are my biggest supporters and also my biggest inspirations. Regardless of age. You, and I know you’re going to pull your humble shit, but you’re literally younger than me and such an inspiration, through the community work and the artistic work you do with PITCH. It’s so amazing.

I feel like a lot of us kind of feel lulls every couple months, like “Why am I doing this?” and then you get a spark of seeing other people doing it and it does something to you and makes you want to keep pushing yourself to create. There are so many amazing Black community organizers, educators, and volunteers in Hamilton like Kojo Damptey. King. That’s all I need to say. Man is impressive as hell for the work that he does. Sarah Jama, another one. Educators: Ruth Ronney, Bonny Ibhawoh, Juliet Daniel. Like, Juliet Daniel is in the sciences. I'm not even in the same place as her, but seeing what she’s doing and knowing that you can make an impact through your work or teaching is so inspiring to me. My community is my biggest inspiration. I can talk about how I love Tupac and his message or Malcolm X or Angela Davis to the end of my days, but people who I know and love and care about are my biggest inspiration on a daily basis.

Angelo: Listen, I gotta echo that right back at you. You are one of my biggest inspirations, for sure. I know you inspire a lot of other people, just seeing the work that you do. The archive, the activity book, and all the community work. Even just seeing your Goodreads account, like oh snap…

Aaron: Not the Goodreads! Why are you bringing up the Goodreads account?

Angelo: Last question I have here is, how have you been taking time to rest and what is the importance of rest, especially as a Black person?

Aaron: For me, I think, compartmentalizing is very important. Knowing when it's time to work, do community stuff, turn off the drive to feel like I need to always be doing something. I need to sometimes supplement. “Just watch Fresh Prince, you’re doing enough.” I just graduated, so I took a month off. I was just cooking soul food and reading Black Panther comics. I didn’t want to do work or art. Just doing things that require no stress: reading and cooking.

As Black people, we have a lot of shit that we’re dealing with, so it’s important to look after ourselves because I think we are often at fault thinking that we don’t need to be paying attention to our mental health, but we need to be paying more attention than others. Dealing with daily traumas in experiences of racism, intergenerational trauma—we need to be taking time and doing whatever we can that gets you out of that mindset. You need to be shifting gears. You can be pro-Black 24 hours a day, doesn’t mean you have to be militant the whole time.

You can celebrate Black joy, Black art, whatever you can that allows your body and mind to take a break so you don’t burn out. Everything going on takes a lot out of us, pandemic, but also community work. You’re always on the go. People don’t teach you about burn out enough. Burnout is real. I burnt out several times during this degree, like I am just afraid to do anything or I can’t do anything and it creates a mental block for you. You can go hard for months and then not be able to get back into it for months again. Regular rest, even if that's just once a day, a nighttime routine, taking time to chill, or once a week. Mine is wash day, which kinda forces me to not do anything. We need regular mental health days to ensure we take care of ourselves, take care of our families and ensure that we actually have the strength to keep doing the work we want to do. 

Angelo: Aaron Parry. Dropping gems the entire time.