WEBVTT - Doubt, Part Five: Getting Out of the Boat 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:04.320 Over the past few months, you've probably heard a lot 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:10.200 about the Tuskegee Experiment. In the nineteen thirties, researchers began 0:00:10.240 --> 0:00:15.320 a study of six hundred black men with syphilis. Scientists 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.920 told them they were being treated for quote, bad blood. 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:24.119 That was not the truth. They wanted to study what 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:28.560 would happen if syphilis went untreated. The study ran for 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:33.559 forty years, the men never received the proper treatment to 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.960 cure their illness. Or you might also know the story 0:00:38.120 --> 0:00:41.320 of Henrietta A. Lax, a Black woman who underwent cancer 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:45.880 treatment in the nineteen fifties in a segregated hospital. She died, 0:00:46.560 --> 0:00:51.960 but researchers cloned her cancer cells. These cells became the 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:56.960 first immortalized human cell line and lead to countless medical 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:01.560 breakthrough But Lax did not consent to this, and while 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.560 drug manufacturers profit off of them, her family had no 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:11.520 idea and continued to live in poverty for decades. Or 0:01:11.920 --> 0:01:15.080 maybe you've heard about Jay Mary and Simms, the so 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:19.759 called father of modern guide incology. He experimented on enslaved 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:23.840 black women without anesthesia. There was a statue of him 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:30.440 in Central Park until over the past year, these events 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:33.959 have become a sort of shorthand for why some Black 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:39.720 people don't trust the COVID vaccines, And of course this 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:43.400 legacy of abuse is part of the reason for that mistrust. 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:47.440 You come to this point in life and you still 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.480 have some of that that trauma that you've you've you've 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.000 held on to the residue from the oral stories that 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:59.800 have been passed down generationally to your own experiences. That's 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.400 Dr Timothy Sloan. He's the head pastor at the Luke 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.160 a Baptist Church in Humble, Texas. Now, when you talk 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:11.840 about UM the vaccine, there's the reminder of the trauma 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:17.080 that was experienced through UM the Tuskegee experiment, and you 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.680 hear the conversations that, um, we need more African Americans 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.840 to be tested UM to get more data for the 0:02:25.919 --> 0:02:32.440 vaccine than that automatically triggers some mistrust. But high profile 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:38.280 abuses like the Tuskey Experiment don't fully explain why the 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:43.520 black community is so suspicious of the medical establishment. Dr 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.359 Sloan says, there's a lot more to it. So when 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:51.280 we talk about the mistrust, I'm a descendant from the 0:02:51.360 --> 0:02:57.120 family of of Briggs. Briggs versus Elliott was the first 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:02.520 case tried dealing with school to segregation in some No, 0:03:02.639 --> 0:03:08.239 South Carolina. In Briggs versus Elliott, was the precursor to 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:12.800 Brown versus Board of Education, the landmark case in which 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:18.880 the Supreme Court ruled that segregating schools was unconstitutional. The 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:21.680 case was tried in Charleston, South Carolina, not far from 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.680 my grandmother's house. Their good marshal tried the case, and so, 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:28.600 of course we didn't win that case. That's when they 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:33.000 went on though towards Brown Versusport of Education. The case 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:37.240 was eventually appealed and then combined with Brown versus Board 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:42.560 of Education. Brown would succeed where Briggs had originally failed 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.240 and paved the way for Dr Sloan to be the 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.000 first person in his family to go to a desegregated school. 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.680 Then Dr Sloan told me about another piece of his 0:03:54.760 --> 0:04:00.400 family history. My grandfather was murdered in tarl So, South 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.600 Carolina by a white mob and he was drowned there 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:09.360 off the seashore. Dr Sloan says that his grandmother got 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:12.360 a knock on the door and someone said her husband 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:17.880 had drowned, without giving a reason why or explaining how 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.960 it had happened. They just said he drowned, But everyone 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.480 in this town knew what happened, saw it happen there 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:32.320 that night. Dr Sloan's family history isn't a diversion. It's 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:36.760 the point. If you are black in America, there are 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:41.080 just more reasons to be on the defensive. Your school 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.960 may not want you to get an education, your doctors 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.680 might want to use you as elaborate, and one day 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:54.600 your loved one just might disappear without any explanation. How 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:57.120 could you not be suspicious of all of the systems 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:02.239 and forces that influence your life. Old stories that trickle down, 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:08.800 They come with a sense of of guards, uptype mentality 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:12.000 in your way of life. I've talked before in this 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:16.279 series about how vaccines require trust in order to work. 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.800 Right now, the medical establishment is asking the Black community 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:28.320 to trust them, and that's a big ask. Medical racism 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:33.800 isn't just a historical fact, it's a present day reality. 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:38.000 Black women are three times more likely than white women 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:42.200 to die because of pregnancy. Half of the number of 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:47.560 black people receive mental health services. Black Americans have the 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:52.679 highest mortality rate for cancer compared to every other racial group. 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.320 In this episode, I've made the choice to talk mainly 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:03.400 about the Black community. Every community's relationship to healthcare and 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:07.400 vaccines is different, and we could probably spend an entire 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:12.280 episode on each of them. Polling has also shown significant 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:17.039 hesitancy among Hispanic people and people who live in rural areas. 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:21.760 Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say they 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:26.400 won't get the vaccine at all. Of course, every individual 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:31.000 has their own experience too. No community is a monolith, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.560 but Black Americans have died at twice the rate of 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.720 wide Americans from the virus. So while there may be 0:06:40.800 --> 0:06:44.640 trust issues with the vaccine and communities of color, they're 0:06:44.680 --> 0:06:49.560 also the communities that need vaccines the most. The medical 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:53.120 establishments need to earn back some of that trust is 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.280 a matter of life and death, and if they succeed, 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:01.200 it could offer crucial insights into how to get other 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:05.680 skeptical groups to get the shot as well. I'm Bloomberg 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.200 News health reporter Christin B. Brown from the prog News 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:33.760 podcast This is Doubt. M On September twelf Reverend R. F. 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:38.760 Skinner founded the St. Luke Missionary Baptist Church in Humble, Texas. 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:44.720 Humble is located eighteen miles northeast of Houston, where the 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:49.000 Woody Big Thicket meets the coastal plains. At the turn 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:52.040 of the twentieth century, it was a small town along 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:56.240 a rail line where most residents worked in agriculture or lumber. 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:01.760 Eventually oil would be discovered there and the town would 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:06.880 boom and bust many times over. Its residents were both 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:11.400 black and white, but they didn't really mix. The black 0:08:11.440 --> 0:08:14.760 people of Humble were not allowed to attend white churches. 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:21.280 St Luke was a black church, but in the story goes, 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:25.480 the white residents held a meeting they decided the black 0:08:25.600 --> 0:08:29.840 churches of Humble were no longer welcome. They told us 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:31.560 the next day that there was a vote and we 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.839 had to move our church, and we had if we 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:35.960 would hurry, we could get some land on the other 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:38.880 side of the railroad tracks. As Dr. Sloan tells it, 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.600 the congregation of St. Luke was asked to move literally 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:47.640 across the tracks and landed eventually in an area called Bordersville, 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.320 and we were there up until the two thousand and ten, 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.920 when we bought property and moved back into really the 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:01.240 center of Humble. For eighty years, St Luke had been 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:05.040 cast out of the center of town Dr Sloan came 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:09.199 aboard in two thousand two. Under his leadership, the church 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:12.600 bought twenty acres of land in prime Humble, built a 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.640 brand new, multimillion dollar worship center that could hold a 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:20.800 thousand people, and eventually rechristened itself the Luke. This story 0:09:21.000 --> 0:09:24.840 is central to the church's mythology. The ending is a 0:09:24.880 --> 0:09:29.080 story of triumph, but it's also yet another story about 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:33.640 people of color being cast aside and treated inequitably. These 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.360 issues are baked into the identity of the church, and 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:40.520 a lot of what we do centers on the challenges 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:44.720 and struggles at impact African Americans, and for the last year, 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.400 those struggles have included whether or not to trust in 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.960 the COVID vaccines. As a pastor, Dr Sloan is the 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.959 leader of his five thousand member congregation. He's a trusted 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:03.080 voice throughout the pandemic. He had avoided discussing the vaccine 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:08.480 and his sermons. Dr Sloane himself was torn over getting one. 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:11.720 I had really been struggling with it, you know, I've 0:10:11.760 --> 0:10:14.960 been talking about it, trying to figure out if I 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.880 trust the vaccine. Conversations with my wife. His wife, the 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.000 first lady of the church is an orthopedic surgeon, you know. 0:10:22.040 --> 0:10:25.360 We both were wrestling with it. And I started to think, though, 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.719 wait a minute. If I have these questions, and I've 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:33.680 got access to the information I have access to, and 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:38.040 surely the typical member of my congregation has the same questions, 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:41.680 then how are we all going to deal with this? 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.160 And I think one of the big gaps is information 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:50.200 in communities. So the church did a survey and found 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:56.400 that the congregation was pretty hesitant. In October, only thirty 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:02.440 of congregants were comfortable getting vaccinate did And there was 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.360 a lot of misinformation floating around. You heard everything from 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:08.520 people saying, you know, they're gonna put a microchip in 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:12.080 you too, You're gonna grow an extra limb, you know. 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:14.840 And I hear people gonna get cancer from this, you know, 0:11:14.880 --> 0:11:18.959 all kinds of things that were out there, floating from 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.280 what you you see on social media and um and 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.079 I was I begun just reading through all that stuff 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.719 and was thinking, man, that this is just bad information 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:34.439 and our biggest hurdle is information. Here. Dr Sloan's congregation 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:39.560 isn't alone in its hesitancy. Different poles paints somewhat varying 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:44.160 pictures of vaccine skepticism among Black Americans, but many suggest 0:11:44.480 --> 0:11:48.280 there is more concern about COVID vaccines among black people 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:53.280 than white people. The recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, for example, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.960 found black adults say they plan to wait to get 0:11:57.960 --> 0:12:00.840 the vaccine until more people have taken it. Compared to 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:06.920 white adults. Those numbers are actually a lot better than 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.760 when the vaccines first began rolling out. All of this 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:16.120 skepticism presented a problem for Dr Sloan. It's not enough 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:19.560 to just give people the facts. Anyone can pull up 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.120 government statistics. But in an age where everyone seems to 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:26.360 be hawking a different set of facts, it's not just 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:40.400 the message that matters, it's also the messenger. And you're 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.040 going to edit all this right, Yes, yes, this is 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.800 I have a producer. You will make you sound lovely 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:51.520 and me sound lovely, and everything you tell him, I 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.440 want him to make me sound like James Earl Jones. 0:12:54.480 --> 0:13:00.440 All right, this is Dr Stephen Thomas, Professor in the 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.880 Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:09.480 Maryland School of Public Health. Stephen has been interested in 0:13:09.520 --> 0:13:12.200 healthcare since he was a kid. His mom was a 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.240 nurse and back in the day when nurses kind of 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:18.280 look like a nurses, you know, the white star tad 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:23.400 I who remember her as a child polishing those shoes, 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:29.080 and so that inspired me to be involved in health. 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:33.360 Stephen has been researching the issue of inequity and healthcare 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.800 since before there was widespread acknowledgment that that was even 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:41.080 a thing. He wants to understand the context that shapes 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.120 the attitudes and behaviors of people of color when it 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:47.560 comes to their health. He says, there are a lot 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.160 of things about how we talk about vaccines that don't 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:54.839 inspire trust. This includes the language we used to talk 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:59.520 about them. It can be scary, confusing, and sometimes also 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:02.600 kind to offensive. So you want to come into my 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:09.240 community talking about her immunity, well, I can remember my 0:14:09.400 --> 0:14:15.840 grandmother telling me at one time White people have thought 0:14:15.880 --> 0:14:24.320 of us like animals, like herds, like chattel. Why do 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:27.400 you want to come into my community with that? Stephen 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:31.720 says that when you're talking about vaccination, you can't divorce 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.800 it from all of the other health care inequities that 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:39.200 can impact people of color. There are hundreds of studies 0:14:39.360 --> 0:14:43.640 that have demonstrated people of color routinely get access to 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:48.400 worse healthcare in America, Black people are more likely to 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:52.600 delay care because of cost, they're more likely to have diabetes, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.480 and they're more likely to die of heart disease. We've 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:00.920 seen similar disparities play out with vaccination. Black and brown 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:05.120 communities have been hit hardest by the pandemic, and yet 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:09.080 not every region has chosen to give communities of color 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:14.280 more doses of the vaccine. Paiser Family Foundation data shows 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:19.400 Black and Hispanic people have consistently received fewer vaccines compared 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:23.240 to their share of cases and deaths. And when inoculation 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:27.360 sites have been set up to give underserved or minority 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:32.720 populations better access to shots, sometimes wealthier suburban nights have 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:38.360 just driven over to get shots there themselves. This is 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:43.400 really frustrating for people like Stephen. It's clear that there 0:15:43.480 --> 0:15:46.640 is a concerted effort to make an overture to the 0:15:46.680 --> 0:15:50.760 black community. When they announced the Phase three clinical trials 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.440 for the Maderna vaccine, the National Institutes of Health put 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.920 out a Q and A which featured a black trial 0:15:57.000 --> 0:16:00.880 participant talking about why it was important black people to 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:05.520 take part in the trial. I had questions that about 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.960 what it would be like, about how it impact on 0:16:08.080 --> 0:16:11.440 me and so I'm here today to help others decide 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.320 whether or not they want to volunteer to participate in 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:19.800 clinical trials. I have to say, the mayor of Tuski, Alabama, 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.000 televised getting his own COVID shot, so did Kamala Harris, 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:28.880 our first Black Asian and female VP. But lack of 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:35.520 access it just reinforces existing mistrust. And that doesn't just 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:40.680 mean having shots available. It also means making sure everyone 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.160 is able to figure out how to sign up for 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.920 an appointment. Don't put systems in place that you say 0:16:46.920 --> 0:16:50.880 are okay, well, everybody has can get online and sign up. 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:53.880 But I know a whole bunch of people who look 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:58.320 like me who don't have stable internet, still on flip 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:03.000 bones and can sit around refreshing, refreshing, refreshing. You get me. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:10.800 So these built in inequalities really exacerbate the institutional racism 0:17:11.440 --> 0:17:15.320 we've been living with Over and over again. In reporting 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:19.200 the series, I've heard from people that they feel dismissed 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:24.400 or that their concerns about vaccines weren't taken seriously. That's 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.240 a big problem across the board. It's hard to trust 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.560 anyone who treats you like your stupid or your concerns 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:36.919 don't matter. Inequities make all of this worse. Hesitant doesn't 0:17:36.960 --> 0:17:43.199 mean no, it means let's talk and don't rush over me. 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.640 This moment is a critical one, and there are forces 0:17:47.680 --> 0:17:52.440 conspiring to really try and screw it up. Anti vaccine 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.480 figureheads like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Have been targeting the 0:17:56.520 --> 0:18:00.800 black community. In March, Kennedy put out a documentary called 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:05.200 Medical Racism, clearly aimed at recruiting more people of color 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:09.520 to the cause, but honestly a botched rollout of the 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:12.840 vaccines in which the people who need them the most 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:16.560 can't get them. That stands to threaten the trust of 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.800 the black community as much as anything else. It's hard 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.439 to trust a system that doesn't seem to prioritize or 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:29.240 care about people that look like you. Those inequality issues 0:18:29.760 --> 0:18:33.960 desperately need to be addressed better, But efforts to gain 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.199 the trust to the black community do seem to be 0:18:37.280 --> 0:18:41.200 making an impact, and those efforts just might tell us 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.399 something useful about how to inspire trust in vaccines in 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:49.520 other communities. Stephen says, we know plenty about why people 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.119 of color distrust health care systems. He says, what we 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:57.960 need now or solutions. The idea for one of those 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.520 solutions came to him over twenty years ago when he 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:04.840 was getting a haircut. I'll change his name to protect him, 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.360 all right, Joe walks in, and you have to understand. 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:12.200 And a black barbershop, you have TVs on every wall, 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:18.679 all to a different shan and the music explaining, and 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:25.480 everybody's talking. So Joe comes in, Hey, Joe, where you been? 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:29.840 He said he was in the emergency room. He pulls 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:31.920 out these pills. He said, the doctor told me I'm 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:35.240 gonna have to take these pills the rest of my life. 0:19:36.480 --> 0:19:39.720 In the barber set, Joe, you know, if you take 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:44.080 those pills, you won't be able to keep up your obligations. 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:49.639 And everybody heard that. I don't have to explain to 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.719 you what that means obligations. I'm going to assume you 0:19:53.720 --> 0:20:01.240 know what he means when he says obligations. I looked 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:06.120 at Joe's face. He's not going to take those pills. 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:11.919 His doctor has no idea. There's somebody in the community 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.679 with this level of influence. Now Jone has been in 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:18.520 the hospital. E er, you just counting up the cross 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:27.760 diagnosed prescribed a medication, got the prescription field walks and 0:20:27.920 --> 0:20:30.120 took on barber's up and not going to take those 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.560 pills anymore. And they not want to go back to 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.600 the doctor because he hasn't been following the doctor's orders. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:43.200 This got Stephen thinking, it's easy to avoid the doctors, 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.880 but not so much a barber. Not if you want 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.600 to look good anyway, no self respect and black barber 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:52.879 whatever is say, I'll get you in and out in 0:20:52.920 --> 0:20:56.560 the fifteen minutes. Okay, there ain't no super cuts, no 0:20:56.760 --> 0:20:59.720 hair cutler, ain't none of that. You're going to spend 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.000 have a day in the barbershop just catching the po thing. 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.920 Some people come in and they don't even need a haircut. 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:13.320 So in many ways it's a sacred space. And this 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:18.920 put an idea in Steven's mind. Whatever the barber was 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:23.000 a partner. What if the barber said, hey, Joe, you know, 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:27.520 if you're having side effects, you know, a rectile dysfunction, 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:32.760 don't be ashamed, tell your doctor you can change the medication. 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:37.119 In other words, Stephen wanted the barber and the doctors 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:41.400 to team up. He wondered what would happen if health 0:21:41.440 --> 0:21:45.760 advice wasn't only coming from doctors, but also from a 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:50.000 trusted member of the community. So in two thousand one, 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:54.399 Stephen started what would become HAIR, the Health Advocates in 0:21:54.480 --> 0:21:59.960 Reach and Research campaign. Through HAIR, he trains local barbers 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.399 and beauticians in Maryland to offer good health advice to 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:08.520 the community and advocate for things like collorrectal screenings. During 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:13.480 the pandemic. Stephen has mobilized this network to disseminate accurate 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:18.879 COVID information, including about the vaccines. Stephen believes that in 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:21.920 order to get past the mistrust, you have to do 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:26.640 the work to build trust, and that requires meeting people 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:31.280 where they are. It requires listening to them, and it 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:36.040 requires acknowledging the missteps of the past and the inequalities 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:39.520 that persist today. I don't like to have to throw 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:43.520 tuskee in your face in an order for you to 0:22:43.600 --> 0:22:48.280 understand that black lives matter, and they don't have to 0:22:48.320 --> 0:22:50.840 be marching in street the matter. They may be in 0:22:50.880 --> 0:22:55.640 a hospital that matters too. With that one word, think 0:22:55.680 --> 0:22:59.639 of what I'm saying to you that these institutions have 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.480 me history of abuse in the name, but I'm here 0:23:02.520 --> 0:23:05.000 to help you in the name of science. Now you 0:23:05.000 --> 0:23:08.880 want me to trust this science this is a legitimate 0:23:09.119 --> 0:23:14.959 distrust and our efforts should be then to rebuild trust 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.800 and then and be trustworthy. At the end of the day, 0:23:19.520 --> 0:23:23.760 even your favorite celebrity probably isn't as convincing as someone 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:29.040 you know, like your aunt, or your barber or your reverend. 0:23:40.240 --> 0:23:44.679 Back in Humble, Texas, Dr Sloan was struggling with what 0:23:44.880 --> 0:23:49.240 message to send his congregation about the vaccine. The pastor 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:52.800 still had a lot of questions by the time vaccines 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:56.119 were starting to roll out. He began thinking about what 0:23:56.240 --> 0:23:59.119 kind of trusted expert the church could turn to for answers. 0:24:00.200 --> 0:24:04.080 I thought to myself, why not asked the top dot 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:08.679 in the nation? And you know the words he can 0:24:08.720 --> 0:24:11.040 say is no. And you know if he doesn't respond, 0:24:11.119 --> 0:24:13.920 nobody knows us in the letter but me. So he 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:17.760 sent an email to the office of Anthony Fauci, the 0:24:17.840 --> 0:24:22.040 head of the National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases. 0:24:22.880 --> 0:24:27.600 A week later, Dr Sloan got a response. Fauci was 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:32.439 in on January six, the same day that pro Trump 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:36.800 extremists stormed the Capitol. They taped an interview. It would 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:40.000 air that Sunday as part of the day's worship Service. 0:24:41.280 --> 0:24:44.520 Dr Sloan says that going into that interview, he was 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:48.920 still feeling pretty conflicted about the shot, but there was 0:24:49.000 --> 0:24:51.840 one moment in which he started to change his mind. 0:24:52.800 --> 0:24:54.959 First of all, I think we need to acknowledge that 0:24:55.040 --> 0:24:58.960 the concern and the hesitation based on what you refer 0:24:59.119 --> 0:25:06.320 to UH as you know, the slights and the mistreatment 0:25:07.000 --> 0:25:11.680 of the African American community historically by the established government 0:25:11.680 --> 0:25:16.919 medical establishment is real in history and we have to 0:25:16.920 --> 0:25:21.040 recognize that it occurred, and we have to emphasize that 0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:27.159 UH situations have been put in place, UH safeguards have 0:25:27.240 --> 0:25:29.439 been put in place that this could never happen again. 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:35.040 When he did that, I felt like for the thousands 0:25:35.080 --> 0:25:39.000 of people who were watching, guards automatically went down and 0:25:39.040 --> 0:25:42.560 there was there was a receptiveness towards what he was saying. 0:25:43.200 --> 0:25:46.240 And after listening to him, after hearing the thoroughness, after 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:50.760 hearing the different things explained in Layman's terms, um I 0:25:50.920 --> 0:25:59.639 concluded that conversation with confidence in taking the vaccine. This 0:25:59.720 --> 0:26:02.280 because back to a lot of what we talked about earlier, 0:26:03.080 --> 0:26:07.360 people and especially black people who have been screwed over 0:26:07.480 --> 0:26:11.439 time and time again. I want to be acknowledged and 0:26:11.560 --> 0:26:15.000 heard vout she was putting all of this into practice, 0:26:15.920 --> 0:26:18.320 and I think that's what many people want. They want 0:26:18.320 --> 0:26:24.119 to know that that what I feel is legitimate, and 0:26:24.200 --> 0:26:26.359 he legitimized a lot of the pain and trauma of 0:26:26.359 --> 0:26:29.200 African Americans. And so we were like, okay, all right, 0:26:29.600 --> 0:26:32.320 So here's someone who really understands where we're coming from. 0:26:32.359 --> 0:26:34.400 And I felt that way, Okay, you understand where I'm 0:26:34.400 --> 0:26:41.280 coming from with these questions. So the interview plays as 0:26:41.320 --> 0:26:45.480 part of the Sunday service. After it ends, it's time 0:26:45.640 --> 0:26:49.960 for Dr. Sloan to give his sermon. Dr Sloan says 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:54.600 that initially he felt uneasy telling his congregation to go 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:59.000 and get vaccinated outright, even though his own concerns had dissipated. 0:27:00.119 --> 0:27:02.920 This is something I've heard from other leaders of Black 0:27:03.000 --> 0:27:06.840 churches in reporting this. A lot of them say that 0:27:06.920 --> 0:27:10.280 they want to give their congregance good information about the vaccines, 0:27:10.880 --> 0:27:13.040 but they don't want to go so far as to 0:27:13.119 --> 0:27:15.960 tell them they should get it. Many have told me 0:27:16.520 --> 0:27:21.400 that would risk compromising the trust their congregations have in them. 0:27:21.520 --> 0:27:23.119 They don't want to appear as if they're on the 0:27:23.160 --> 0:27:27.760 side of corporations or the government. Instead, of their community. 0:27:28.240 --> 0:27:31.960 I wanted to offer to people, you know, hey, take 0:27:32.000 --> 0:27:35.760 this information and make the best decision. So the reverend 0:27:35.800 --> 0:27:39.359 takes the stage after the interview plays. He's wearing a 0:27:39.400 --> 0:27:43.120 crisp black suit and light pink tie. He has thick 0:27:43.160 --> 0:27:47.680 black frame glasses on. He starts with a story about 0:27:47.760 --> 0:27:55.880 lepers in the Book of Second Kings, chapter seven, beginning 0:27:55.880 --> 0:28:00.320 at verse three, the word of God is recorded. The 0:28:00.359 --> 0:28:03.600 story goes that there were four lepers standing outside a 0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:08.040 city gate. The city is suffering from famine, and the 0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:11.080 lepers are trying to figure out what to do with themselves. 0:28:12.040 --> 0:28:15.520 So they said to each other, why should we stay 0:28:15.560 --> 0:28:19.320 here until we die? If we say we'll go into 0:28:19.359 --> 0:28:23.200 the city, well, the famine is there and we will die. 0:28:24.440 --> 0:28:29.000 And if we stay here, we will die. So let's 0:28:29.000 --> 0:28:32.760 go over into the camp or the Ramians and surrender. 0:28:33.520 --> 0:28:36.440 Doctor Sloan then goes on to say that he's telling 0:28:36.480 --> 0:28:41.240 the story because it's about people making decisions together, and 0:28:41.280 --> 0:28:46.080 then suddenly he switches gears from the Old Testament to today. 0:28:47.440 --> 0:28:50.280 I don't need to tell you how startling the statistics 0:28:50.280 --> 0:28:55.760 are today. There've been over ninety one million cases of 0:28:55.880 --> 0:29:02.040 COVID worldwide. One point nine three mill in deaths, twenty 0:29:02.080 --> 0:29:06.440 two point seven million cases and three hundred eighty one 0:29:06.560 --> 0:29:11.320 thousand deaths in the United States alone, and those numbers 0:29:11.360 --> 0:29:16.160 are still rising as we speak. And while these numbers 0:29:16.200 --> 0:29:20.880 are alarming, there even worse for African Americans. As his 0:29:21.000 --> 0:29:26.280 sermon unfolds, he discusses Tuskegee and why it's understandable for 0:29:26.400 --> 0:29:30.680 black people to be suspicious of the vaccine, and then 0:29:31.320 --> 0:29:35.520 he makes a link between the lepers and the Black community. 0:29:35.800 --> 0:29:38.600 Challenges are nothing new to us, but we've always been 0:29:38.640 --> 0:29:42.760