People of color need facts on COVID-19

Crystal R. Emery said she knows that if Black, Hispanic and indigenous people are going to protect themselves from COVID-19 and become willing to be vaccinated, the messenger is as important as the message.

Emery, a New Haven-area filmmaker who is quadriplegic, has never let her disability stop her from improving the lives of other people of color. She has Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, which affects the body’s peripheral nerves, as well as diabetes.

Now, Emery, 59, has teamed up with a range of people of color including churches and other community groups, to bring accurate information to people who have been mistrustful of media and who may receive inaccurate information from social media.

“Nobody knows what to believe. Nobody knows what is real,” Emery said. “All of the Black and brown people were not getting the right information from sources that they respect.” Those same communities have been the hardest hit by the pandemic, suffering disproportionately in the number of cases and deaths.

Through a video series, texts and infographics, Emery and her organization,

URU The Right to Be, has launched Our Humanity, a project “of really dealing with people’s mindsets and belief systems,” she said.

“There’s a huge gap here, and what I do well is creating information that lowers people’s defense mechanisms and that allows a new way or a different way to look at something,” Emery said. “It allows a clearer understanding of what those issues are.”

She has the backing of former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders and once and future Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, clergy, including the Rev. Boise Kimber and Bishop Theodore Brooks in New Haven and the Rev. Charles Stallworth in Bridgeport, and community leaders, including former New Haven Mayor Toni Harp and Karen DuBois-Walton, president of the Housing Authority of New Haven.

COVID has made the reality of racial and ethnic disparities in health care more stark than ever, Emery said. “The CDC, the American Medical Association have all come out and said racism is a public health crisis,” she said. “The first part of bridging that gap is really creating prevention awareness that really looks like us. … We have over 70 videos made by Black and brown doctors.”

“It’s videos, it’s Instagram Live every Wednesday, where I have different experts speaking, where people can ask questions, make comments,” Emery said.

“Our goal is to reach at least 200,000 to 400,000 Black and brown people across the state,” Emery said.

Online workshops will be offered in English and Spanish and faith and community leaders will be trained to disseminate information.

“I call them community educators,” Emery said. “You have the direct touch but then you have the people that they touch.”

Because getting both COVID and the flu is “a no-win situation,” she is working with Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center on both testing and immunizations.

There is so much to teach: how to properly wash hands and keep jewelry clean, understanding who you’ve come in contact with. “You may think your bubble is two levels deep but in actuality it’s 10 levels deep,” Emery said. “You have to do this person by person. You can’t send an email.” If it was that easy, a lot fewer people would have become infected with the coronavirus, she said.