Parris Sarter
@Pm_salty on her sofa.
-Theatre-
I will forever be grateful for Parris. She played one of my besties in the first show I did in Atlanta (post apprenticeship) and has been a kind and welcoming light every time I have the pleasure of seeing her.
I got to her apartment before she did. She was out getting a Covid-19 test. She moseyed up her stairs and I surprised her. She immediately started to giggle and apologize, and brought me into her adorable one bedroom on the north side of town. Her kitties (well, the one I saw) were very curious about another person in the house.
She was the first person I talked to after the protests following the death of George Floyd began happening in Atlanta. Her interview brought me some much-appreciated clarity. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I hope everyone knows how brilliant she is. Well you will now, I guess.
Interviewed 5.31.20
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Casey: First and foremost, how are you?
Parris: I'm good. Today I'm good. I've been oddly good.
I guess because I have a day job. So that's been keeping me going and we've been busy, so I've been blessed in that realm, so I'm just like, "Okay, at least I have this." It's like one less stress about bills and everything. I know everyone else in our community, there's a lot of stress.
Casey: How do you feel like you're doing emotionally?
Parris: I don't know. I think I'm not sad. Emotionally, I'm a lot of things. I think I'm frustrated. I'm so frustrated, Casey. I'm exceedingly frustrated. It's ridiculous.
Casey: Is that with Covid plus current stuff?
Parris: The lack of leadership is just profound. You would think this—especially a disease that no one knows—everyone obviously would get on board. Obviously. Obviously! But it's not happening. And it's like - what? So I think it's the frustration of, obviously, the president. Then, you know, the governor, and then you have different states doing their own thing. Then you have people just kind of not really wanting to believe that this is out here. Then on top of that, you have people who can't work or couldn't work at the time, and that's stressful . . . .
So I watch cartoons because, you know, and I wish I was lying. I literally sit and watch the old-school Scooby Doo or something funny. Because it's a lot. So you're just like, "You know what? I live in my little world. I'm okay. What I see is everyone is doing the best they can. Imma say my prayers and Imma watch Scooby Doo." I'm going to vote in November. It's just like I don't know what to do anymore. It's like I don't know what the hell's happening. It's like everyone's taking crazy pills since 2016. I feel like the world literally took pills and the world's upside down.I think I got left out and I feel like I'm one of the few people who still have common sense. And you go, "What? What is going on? We were just okay yesterday. And what the hell is this?" So, yeah, that's where I'm at.
Casey: What else have you been doing to cope? Obviously you're watching cartoons, great.
Parris: I've actually been cooking more, so beefing up on my culinary skills. I try to exercise more. I put on my records and dance a little. I sleep a lot. I'm reading a lot more. I've introduced myself to Ms. Toni Morrison, so I'm reading more of her work. Christmas, I reread The Bluest Eye for myself, also for an audition, but for myself. Now I started watching the last documentary that they had put together before her passing. Now after that, I've read Sula and I'm reading her latest, her last edition of her collection of her works that she edited. So then I think the next book I read is Song of Solomon. So I'm just introducing myself personally to Ms. Morrison and knowing her work and just reading.
Casey: What do you find inspiring about Toni Morrison's work?
Parris: She writes in a very poignant way for black women in a way that, like, there is a line in Sula that she says about Sula and her friend. She says the two girls had a connection, that they were neither white or male. If you're a black woman, period, with black women friends, that is the truth. That is a true statement. It hit. I was like, "Wow, I've never heard anyone say it out loud." She wrote stories of black women, about black women before The Color Purple. She was the first one to do this before Alice Walker. So because she wrote saying, “I want to read this because no one else is writing about us.” So you have a story about a young black girl and colorism and how does that affect you in the world and how people see you? She expresses deep down this rage that no one understands but other black women, that you don't feel alone in it or is not trivialized. It's this remarkable connection.
Then, at the same time, you want to share her work with everybody. You feel like she wrote this and then she wants you, she wants everybody to read it. She's not going to explain it to you. Just read it. You're being introduced to a whole new world or a world that you already know. There's just this wonderful richness about her work that you see why she won the Nobel Prize. You really do. When you're reading it, you're like, "Oh, yeah," you know. You don't agree or you read it and you get mad. You read it again. You get sad. You feel all these feelings. You don't have to feel philosophically. You could just read it. Go back. There's a moment where how she writes, you do have to go, "Wait a minute, did I read that right?" and go back.
She makes you proud. When you click with the work, you really click with it. There's something I can't explain. For years I was very intimidated because I knew it's Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye, you know? I didn't grow up reading her work. Then when I did in my 20s, I was very like, "I don't know what I just read. That was tough." So I finished reading it. Then literally almost, I don't know, 15 years later, I reread it. This time, I felt like I got to know her through the [documentary]. Then I just went, "Oh. Maybe I just needed to be mature enough to really enjoy her work [ . . .]”
She gives you this feeling that we've lived through this before and we're going to come out of it better, and stronger, and more educated, and more this, and your eyes are gonna be more open and all this good stuff. So it's just... Yeah. Yeah.
Casey: That's beautiful. I love that you are discovering that.
Parris: I can't wait to read Song of Solomon because she deals with the stories that her and our elders used to talk about flying, the flyings. I remember when I heard it, I was like, "I remember my grandmother talking about that,” when I was a little girl. The old folks talking about flying, flying slaves. They flew and you're just like, "What?"
You know, when you're young, you're like, "I don't know about that,” and then when you hear it again as an elder and she incorporates these wonderful stories that the old folks used to tell us. She's giving us this wonderful record, you know?
Casey: It sounds like you are enjoying the alone time because you're here by yourself. Do you see anybody? Do you miss seeing people? What do you miss about before?
Parris: I mean, I miss going out. Like, "Oh, we're all gonna be at the Thinking Man or we're gonna..." I miss the gatherings. I miss really hanging out with a group of fun people and drinking and eating and just having a good time.
I mean, I saw one friend. Now I'm starting to see just one friend. And that's, you know, like I had two people over two weekends ago and we had a little dinner party, you know, just small. But I miss big gatherings and just enjoying your friends and just laughing and sharing stories or "remember that time". . .
Casey: Just to see other people?
Parris: Just to see other people. Just to get out. I think I impulsively now just buy groceries. Just get out of the house, you know. That's my essential food.
Casey: Are you creating at all?
Parris: No.
Casey: How do you feel about that?
Parris: I'm okay. I'm okay with that. I know we're gonna be back on the stage. I know that. I'm not mourning anything. I know that. Watch out world cause I'm well rested. I am. This actor is well rested.
Casey: I love that idea.
Parris: Because I was really stretched thin. Everyone knows I work a lot. So the fact that 2020 says, you can *swerve noise*. So me not creating is okay because I needed to rest. I'm that person that needed to rest and sleep and just take a moment and get quiet and, you know, God, what's going on? Maybe God's trying to tell us something. I don't know. But I'm okay with not creating right now. I think me reading and following my impulses is making me more in tune of who I am to make me, hopefully even a better actor when we gear things back up whenever, hopefully next year. So I'm okay with that.
Casey: So you think next year 2021 we'll be back?
Parris: Hopefully. I don't feel like we wouldn't be. It's weird, I'm not worried. It's this weird feeling that I'm not like, "What are you gonna do? What are you going to do?" I'm like, "We are going to be okay, whatever is happening has to happen." You know, the universe is gonna figure it out [ . . .]
Don't mark my words, but I honestly think once we get out of this shit, we're gonna be okay as long as we learn why we were in this shit and how we got out of this shit and then we do better. We do better. Like Dr. Maya Angelou says, it's like once you know better, you do better. We say we're better than this, well, hopefully we start to realize that and actually do better. That's the hope.
Casey: What have we learned? What have you learned? If we can hope that this is almost over and we can look back.
Parris: Hopefully, we learn that change ain't overnight. We can't give up on it because one person said it and it didn't happen. When you wake up, it's not magic. It's work. That was the whole point of Hillary. She would have cemented what Obama had did in eight years and built off of that. You have to see the full picture and understand that and not get easily discouraged when things aren't working your way. Really, I hope we grow up.
I feel like young black people are really waking up to something, to the things that are happening in the world, or maybe they already have. I don't want to speak for them, but I know for me I felt like I was ringing a gong by myself. Now it's like, okay, everyone is, but what did it have to take to get us to here? Our feeds are filled with people now. Hopefully, we learn from this, that we don't keep repeating. It feels like we get outraged and then it goes away and then we get outraged again and it goes away [. . .]
I think, especially times like this, people will jump on their high horses and miss the bigger picture. Because there's a big picture happening and I feel like I want people to understand. I think we all just need to learn that there's a big picture. Everything's connected. Pay attention. Don't be distracted. Don't jump on every small thing, especially what 45 [Donald Trump] does, like, really stay focused. Hopefully, that's what I'm learning and hope to keep learning as I get older, that I just stay focused and not easily distracted by everything, and see that everything is connected somehow, and then really believe that change can come. But I fear that we say that, and I fear that if the leader isn't perfect, then we just rip them apart. And I think that's not good because we're people and no one's perfect [ . . .] I feel like hopefully we grow up from that. That they learn something. If they're the same person that they were 15 years ago, then rip 'em apart, but if they've gotten better, they've learned from their errors, let's hear them out.
Casey: Do you have anything else you want to share?
Parris: I hope everyone's doing okay. Don't get discouraged, especially now, my God. Don't get discouraged. You know, keep your head up. Listen to your elders and if you don't have elders that talk common sense, find some, you know? And read. Educate yourself. There is good in the world, despite what's happening. There is good. There's hope. I find that's the key I've learned for longevity. I've learned from my grandparents and my great aunts and all, they have faith in God and that's the key. Don't let things beat you down to the ground. Don't let it beat you down to the ground. That's the trick of the enemy. He wants you to be so broken that you just give up. Don't.
