[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:01] JW: Welcome to another great episode of The Public Health Joy Podcast. Today, we got the homie on today. Oh, no. We got Marline Edmond. That’s a horrible name. But I know Marline is Munch da Plug. That’s how I got introduced to Marline. Marline is a third-year doctoral student at Howard University Cathy Hughes School of Communications. So now, Munchy da Plug, I’m going to give you the floor, so that you can share with us all about your journey, all about who you are. Because some people might not know what the plug is, but you’re the one. You can plug in.

 

[0:01:42] ME: Yes. I do not remember when we met, but I know we met and it was just like immediate. Like, okay [inaudible 0:01:47]. “What is it that you’re working on? What is that you’re doing? How can I support you?” I’d love to find that we have Black leaves in public health who are doing this work, and coming together, and understand the importance of sisterhood in public health, and just collaborating with one another.

 

Once again, I am Munch da Plug, go by the public health plug. There’s always – I like doing this thing where taking a word from its negative sense and turn it into something positive. I’m an alchemist. I define the plug as someone who’s resourceful, someone who is going to share content, context, information, public health resources with others to expand their network. That’s one thing that I do all the time when it comes to the work that I do in the field of public health. I’ve received my Bachelor’s at Montclair State University, my Master’s at Rutgers University. Now I am at Howard University, studying health communications. I identify as a health communications strategist, a lot of what I do requires putting together public health campaigns, creating communication strategies, as well as social media strategies, and as well as research and writing.

 

Plug Communications actually come from my name, Munch da Plug. Plug Communication represents developing culturally competent health communication materials in plain language that you get. So I help my clients in speaking just plain language with them, to get them to understand the strategies that I’m putting together to receive the outcomes that they’re looking for.

 

[0:03:15] JW: That’s so important because when we’re talking about research and public health, we get into this like academic jargon. All of these big words that a lot of people never heard of, and it’s like, “Okay, I’m going to do community work.” [Inaudible 0:03:30] communities and you’re speaking a whole another language that they don’t even –

 

[0:03:35] ME: Whole another language. We always talk about that. We talk about that very freely. That’s one thing that I love about the way I also write, because so many know I’m Haitian-American. I always say that I’ve been a health communicator for over 20 years, because at a very early age, I had to help my Haitian parents navigate the healthcare system. In part, that required reading documents, translating them, and then breaking it down into plain language in Haitian Creole. There’s a skill to do that. It’s not just about text, but also how to communicate document, how to communicate content, what one group understand may mean something completely different to another group. That’s how Plug Communication started. My lived experience, but also during the COVID-19 crisis, when we were helping the Haitian community in Elizabeth, New Jersey, complete the census and then educating them about the misinformation on COVID-19.

 

Those were the early beginnings of Plug Communication. Plain language is very important. Health literacy, many professionals understand the importance of the practitioners’ work, and there’s a distinct difference between the two because professionals are using jargon, whereas practitioners are saying, “No, we need to break this down because it’s not equitable for our people.” Even in my style of research, whenever I’m writing, I’m thinking I want this to get in the hands of someone within my community, how can this be translated in a way for them to understand? Whether it’s the data, whether it’s a literature review, or just overall, the aspect of what my research is. I also take that into consideration in my writing.

 

[0:05:12] JW: Even when I think about my community where I’m from, it ain’t no way I’m talking the same way to my family and to my friends. I’m just not. It’s amazing how when we find ourselves in those situations, especially if we have been in academia, and being part of the Black diaspora, we can [inaudible 0:05:34] real quick. We don’t have a problem.

 

[0:05:37] ME: That’s a gift that Black women have. We know how to navigate different spaces. We have this duality be like, “Okay, I can change this [inaudible 0:05:44] polar bear.” Being able to do that is important.

 

[0:05:49] JW: Yes. Being able to be in a place where you can build that trust, and build those relationships through communication is super helpful as well. Because when you are more transparent, and people believe your words, and your actions, and I think that’s part of that communication piece. We’re not just communicating with our words; we’re also communicating with our actions too.

 

[0:06:18] ME: Absolutely. Communicating with our actions also require us to protect that community, from others who are looking at us as gatekeepers to that community. And say, “Hey, we see that you have access. We see that you have an influence.” Yes, we do, but what is your agenda? And is the agenda that you have for my community going to hurt this community? Because once we lose this trust, no one will have access to this trust. And then it will take years, sometimes centuries for community to trust you again.

 

So we have to as a Black woman, as a first-generation Haitian American, I made sure I always speak to my community, and those leaders and say, “Hey, let’s take a deeper dive. Is this going to hurt our community? Is this going to heal our community?” For those who do want to work within our community, understanding that we have to play decision-making rules, and what gets funneled into our community, so that we can make sure that we’re not causing further harm.

 

[0:07:19] JW: And when we’re talking about that protection, that’s just something that’s woven into the fabric of who we are. There’s no textbook that teaches you, you got to protect your own community. That’s just something we know, that we want to do, that we need to do. Because so many people have come in to harm our communities, and it’s like – and I often find myself in such a hard place with it, like trying to tell people over there, “You are doing harm, and I’m trying to protect my community.” But also knowing I have the same knowledge that they do have. I’ve done harm, what’s happening with the research, and I have to do a lot of unlearning myself.

 

[0:08:06] ME: Absolutely. That’s part of the journey. One thing that we have to remove the blame from the individuals, and blamed institutions, blame the structures of power who has positioned them in that state. So words can hurt, words can heal as well. So with health communication, how simply telling someone, “Well, you just need to take your medicine” can be harmful. Do they have the health literacy to administer that medicine? Rather than stopping and listening to the patient, and say, “These are the side effects of this medication?” Are you experiencing any of this, or showing compassion? Not doing harm by saying, “Hey, there is an organization that I found in your community that can provide you with X, Y, and Z, some type of medication assistance, knowing who are those key players in that community. Language have power, and we can either continue to heal and/or hurt our community.

 

So I also see there’s another layer, and this is a conversation you and I always have. That as Black women in academia, it’s like we’re unlearning by also making sure that we are amplifying other Black scholars work in our work. Working collaboratively with them, and learning the western education, and how this means something public health practices that harm our community using other models versus traditional models that never have been used on people who look like us. Evidence-based practices as well. There’s so many things that we’re dismantling, there’s so many layers, but we’re here, we’re active, and we’re doing that. That’s why having health communication in the forefront is important when we’re talking about public health, because that information needs to be translated. And when it’s not translated appropriately, it’s going to further cause harm. Harm is always going to be the outcome. 

 

[0:10:02] JW: Yes, absolutely. As you were talking, I was thinking about an experience that I had. This was way back when I was an undergrad. It was the first time that I had thought about language, like even the smallest of words can make an impact, right? So we were in this philosophy class, and the philosophy instructor professor wrote out what’s the difference between this word, A and The? We’re like, “Huh? A and the, I mean, I don’t know, it really ain’t no difference between the two of them.” Then he said, “Okay, well, let’s put it in front of another word. What’s the difference between a guide and the guide?” Then we were like, “Holy snap.”

 

[0:10:49] ME: Okay. Now everyone’s thinking like, “Hold. Wait. Hold up.” 

 

[0:10:53] JW: Yes.

 

[0:10:54] ME: But then he does a spin on it, and through faith and religion, right?

 

[0:10:57] JW: Mm-hmm. So then it was like, from that point, I started paying attention to those little one-letter, two-letter, three-letter word in language, and communications, and things like that. So even when we’re talking about public health research, I’m like, are you doing research on communities? Or are you doing research with communities? Or are you doing research for communities? Like those little words make a difference? Because we know that research has been done on communities, and it has done plenty of harm.

 

[0:11:33] ME: Oh, plenty of harm. Language will change your entire research. Even in the classroom, like as a professor, I always tell my students, “You better capitalize the B in Black. Capitalize the B and Black, and we were not slaves, we were enslaved.” It makes a difference. We were never slaves, we were enslaved. Even using words like immigrants. I no longer use the word immigrant or even migrant. In my text, I will say transatlantic migrant or displaced. Changing the language in our research, changing the language in how we speak to people in our community is important.

 

As we say, we say words have power, but even the words like BIPOC, I don’t identify as a BIPOC. I identify as a Black woman. It takes away from who we’re talking about, and it no longer censors that community. So in my writing, I always define the community in how they define themselves. I’ve done research with a communication agency, where they just wrote Haitians, and I said, “Well, the community that you’re looking at, yes, they’re Haitian. But if you’re looking at different generations, there are some Haitians who do not identify as Haitians. Another word that they used was Haitian-Americans.” I said, “Well, this elderly population do not identify as such if they were born in Haiti. What you can use is Haitian and Haitian-Americans, because then you’ll have the millennial who are born here in America, we identify either as American or Haitian-American. But those who don’t know, they’re not going to know about those two nuances.” So culture plays a major role in language and how a community identifies themselves.

 

[0:13:15] JW: How we name our communities, how we talk about ourselves in terms of our communities. I say all the time, “I’m from the [inaudible 0:13:23]. I’m from Mississippi.” 

 

[0:13:25] ME: You always say that, and you say it proud all the time. 

 

[0:13:27] JW: All the time. 

 

[0:13:29] ME: [0:13:29] your head and people like, “We know you’re going to write about this.” “I’m like, “Yes, and I’m going to make sure you get sick of me writing about Haiti. But every time you hear me speak, you’re learning something new, and how it connects to Black history, whether how it connects to Black health, and the historical practices in America and then Haiti. As we take a deeper dive into gynecology, and Black maternal health, and I’m learning about the different unethical practices that took place in Haiti in Louisiana, when it came to discovery of cesarian sections.” It’s just like the more I’m learning, I’m like, I’m a health communicator, I’m a public health historian. There’s this like this wheel that’s spinning, and the more that I learn about the two countries, or just global health in general. And it’s like, there’s plenty of health communication problems here. It’s like, “Wait, we need to really zero in on these issues, and show how we need to change primary prevention, and how we need to change how we speak to our communities about primary prevention and more.”

 

[0:14:39] JW: Because of you, I started using the words intentionally neglected.

 

[0:14:44] ME: Yes, that’s not – listen, it’s not a word. Intentionally. Yes, I wrote down all of that. I think it was like in a tweet. I said, intentionally neglected, the words were – in that, we use intentionally under-resourced, but just intentionally. When we say that, [inaudible 0:15:00] hold up, we’re taking the blame away from the individual, and we’re placing it here. And by name, this is the agency, this is the department who did X, Y, Z and it was [inaudible 0:15:10] why because [inaudible 0:15:12].

 

[0:15:16] JW: Now, just knowing that terminology. I mean, for a lot of us, we just don’t know the terminology. We got to have somebody to expose us to it, because [inaudible 0:15:25]. I haven’t been exposed intentionally neglected. Now. I’m like, “Oh, let me change my vocabulary.” I feel like I feel like we need a whole new dictionary, like a whole new dictionary. Public health, health equity dictionary. We need to take some vocabulary tests, some spelling tests, something, just drive it all the way back to grade school.

 

[0:15:48] ME: Don’t only look at the spelling, because don’t get me to try to write decolonization, because now, the English and the Creole will trip me up in a heartbeat. [Inaudible 0:16:00].

 

[0:16:03] JW: I got a whole PhD, I’d be like A, B, C.

 

[0:16:07] ME: All the time.

 

[0:16:08] JW: Like all the time, I’d be like –

 

[0:16:09] ME: I’m like, I before E. I’m like, there’s a C and S here. The word that trip up the most right now is exacerbate. I don’t know how to spell it, but I’m not going to say exacerbate somewhere in my closing somewhere in my summary as well. The conclusion is that, due to this, it further exacerbates the health outcome. That’s my word. You can’t get me to spell it. You can get me to spell it on the spot.

 

[0:16:34] JW: I misspell experience every time I type it. I don’t know what it is. I switched the I and E around. It’s crazy.

 

[0:16:42] ME: It’s so funny like, “Okay, [inaudible 0:16:42]. Can I pull Grammarly? This is not [inaudible 0:16:47]. Can I pull Grammarly real quick?

 

[0:16:50] JW: Thank the Lord for spellcheck because experience will always be spelled wrong, always.

 

[0:16:57] ME: Lived experiences, another word that I – I remember my first semester at Howard, tenant. I said, “What the hell is a tenant?” I was, “Oh, are they talking about people who live in the house?” Never heard tenant a day in my life prior. The things you know and the things you don’t know. I think that’s the beauty of it all of unlearning and relearning is being able to say, “I don’t understand.” And being able to say, “Can you explain that to me?” Because sometimes when I asked that to certain people, getting them to say the second time makes them realize how horrible what they just said. I’m like, “Yes, you had to say it twice to really catch what you said.” And how, again, causing harm. Communication causes harm. And being able to say, “Hey, this community may feel like in this way, when you say these things.”

 

[0:17:47] JW: And it takes a level of critical thinking. We have to be critical thinkers when it comes our communication. And just because it’s something that we’ve always said, we’ve always done, it doesn’t mean that it’s right. Especially when we’re able to learn a new word, or a new phrase that is better, or more fitting, or more appropriate. We have to really take the time to critically think and analyze what are the things that we are saying. What are the things that we are writing? How was this message being conveyed to the person, the other audience, the other community? What does that look like? And like you said, words hurt. Even more, even more so than words hurt, silence hurts.

 

[0:18:32] ME: Yes, spiral of silence. You have a culture where you have some individuals who will take the spiral of silence to protect their reputation, who don’t want to share what their views are, or the whole idea of groupthink. I wonder what everyone else is going to say, because everyone else is taking side A, and then you have people who are right smack dab in the middle of say, “This is what I know. This what I don’t know.” But I know that these two things can be true, right? What I appreciate is being on Twitter, and following a number of scholars, and back to the vocabulary words that we were talking about earlier, public vocabulary, but they give us the language. It’s just like – and I remember being at a conference, and I think it was Dr. Drew who said like, “I can afford to say this now. I couldn’t say these things before, early in my in my work.” That made me think like, okay, there might be a student who may not have the language. We’re passing it back. We’re building on this new dictionary like this iCloud of term. 

 

I was at another summit where I heard the terminology, data genocide. An indigenous scholar that was there, I can’t remember her name. I was like, “Wow.” In the term when the public health epidemiologist and how data is being used to wipe out an entire group of people, and how data, how we translate data hurts as well. 

 

[0:19:58] JW: A newer word that I came across is data equity. How are we using data equitably in bringing communities into the fold with understanding the data, disseminating the data, bringing them along this process and making sure that they have ownership of the data? So data equity is another one of those times where I’m like, I did not know that this was a freight. This is what I’ve been doing, but I didn’t know that this was the phrase that was behind it.

 

[0:20:25] ME: I’m learning every day. The more we learn, the more we grow, the more we build, and the more we can provide this language to those before and after us as well. We’re [inaudible 0:20:35] now, it makes me happy. We’re constantly plugging myself in different networks, and people like, “I didn’t know you know such and such.” I’m just like, “Listen, we’re all –” I’m like, “The field is but so small, but so big, but then it’s just like a person, and then immediately there’s this connection. Okay, let me plug you in here.” That’s what I do and that’s what I love to do, a health communication strategist, but just overall as a person.

 

[0:21:00] JW: It’s so funny, because now, I’m just thinking about all the words, like all the words that we have been taught, that we’ve had to try to unlearn, that we’ve had to try to learn how to move forward, and the world is constantly changing. It’s constantly evolving. Our language has to evolve with it. I mean, 20 years ago, we didn’t know what LGBTQIA Plus even was. We weren’t able to identify with different groups of people or different communities. Now that we have the language, and I hear a lot of people say, “Oh, when we know better, we do better.” But that’s not always the case. So now that we know better when it comes to our language, in our vocabulary, in our communication, we need to do better, yes. But it takes some real action, a real critical thinking behind it, some real effort. Like, it’s hard. There’s a lot of effort behind understanding communication, especially as things consistently change and evolve. Like, it’s really hard. I don’t know if anybody else feels that way. But I find it very hard, and I find myself pitching myself all the time like, “Oh, don’t say that. Say this.”

 

[0:22:26] ME: Yep, even with COVID. We saw that where we were getting new information every week. I remember one group I was working with, and they were – I was assisting with them creating, creating culturally competent health information in Haitian Creole. When we will post it a few days later, people respond, “All that information isn’t accurate.” Well, it was accurate last week. It was accurate last week when it was accurate. But we do have a – this time I said, “Hey, this may not be accurate after a certain number of days, because of the constant change.” 

 

People did not know what quarantine meant. It’s like quarantine, and when you translate what quarantine was in Haitian Creole, people remember the tuberculosis crisis in Haiti, and how they had to be away from their loved ones. They didn’t understand what six feet meant. So how do you break down this information, and how do you begin to break down this information this week, and the new information that’s presented to you, and you’re telling someone, “Hey, there’s no longer the new information.” It’s like, “Wait, do I trust you or do I not trust you?” When things are constantly changing, we have to change as well. When one thing doesn’t work, we have to be able to keep in mind that, okay, how do we shift? How do we adjust in a way that that will improve the community?

 

If we were sharing things, if we were able to approach people in person, now, we can’t be [inaudible 0:23:45]. How can we have our community events virtually? How can birthing people still receive the services that they need or the support? Or how can this individual receive the service that they need virtually for they have to go to specific locations? Do they have access to go to that location? Whether it’s by car, or does that organization have to provide them with a ride? So you saw increasing rideshares from different organizations that I’ve worked with?

 

[0:24:14] JW: Yes. I think the other thing is that when, as you were talking, I was thinking about system overload. Sometimes you’re trying to do all these different things when it comes to public health, or research. or communication, we get overwhelmed.

 

[0:24:25] ME: It can be overwhelming.

 

[0:24:28] JW: With us, just humans in general, the simpler the better, to go to the path of least resistance. When we’re talking about – like you’re talking about COVID-19, and people not knowing what quarantine. I remember, we’re talking about the difference between quarantine, and isolation, and social distancing, and figuring all that out. It was just system overload. So we have to be mindful in our work, especially when we’re working with communities. That if we get overwhelmed, if we get overloaded with information in the system, how much harder is it for someone who’s never been in this world, who has never experienced, or been exposed to the terminology, and some of that jargon that we talk about all the time. We have to be very mindful of how we are communicating with these communities, because we don’t want to overwhelm, and overload them, either, because that could add more harm. Because at some point, they’re just like, “Look, I don’t have time for this.” 

 

[0:25:26] ME: They’re going to do what’s best for them. Just because you’re – another layer that we witnessed is that, you’re communicating, stay six feet, isolate, social distance. When you have families who had more than families of three, four, five, and more. Families that include blended families of mother, father, sister, or partner, and grandmother, or grandfather, cousins, aunts, uncles, who are immigrants, two-bedroom apartment. How can someone isolate and quarantine? Who is the message for? Is this message equitable? You’re basically clearly saying, this is the audience this message is for. 

 

[0:26:07] JW: But I think, you definitely bring up an excellent point in thinking about, who is your message for. We don’t think about it like that as much as we should. Because that should be a constant thought. Who is this message for? If this person on the other end receives this message, how will it be interpreted? How will it be perceived? That is super important, because that is going to – and we have to have conversations about it. We have to be willing to get uncomfortable. Because if you provide a message, or convey a message to that other person, and they need to feel the space to be able to say, “Hey, that made me uncomfortable. Hey, that made me feel offended. Hey, that did not align with my values or what I thought our relationship was or whatever.” And we have to be comfortable hearing that, and listening to it, listening to it, and then trying to figure out, “Okay, what do I need to do to change? How can I repair and restore this relationship? What does that conversation need to look like?” Definitely an excellent point as far as who is this message for. And how do we need to start thinking about that?

 

[0:27:18] ME: I have last [inaudible 0:27:19], what’s in the billboards? What’s on the door of the bodega store? Do they accept EBT? What type of ads are on a bus stop, if there’s a bus stop? And if there is a bus stop, is there a bus station? Are there three? Is this a high-traffic area? Why this message is here versus in another community? So going into the community and seeing the different ads lets me know that, okay, “What are we seeing every day that other people may or may not notice?” As a health communicator, what I’ve noticed?

 

[0:27:51] JW: There’s something else to note too that, because of our perspective, because of our experiences, we’re able to see things so much differently than maybe someone else who is not a part of our community or has not been in this space. And we’re able to speak up against or for whatever it is that will protect our community when it comes to that communication, and when it comes to understanding what is it that needs to be done, what actions need to be taken in order to promote an equitable environment to promote healthy communities, and what that looks like. I think that’s super important as well. But as we get ready to kind of wrap up, I got one last question for you. What brings you joy in your work?

 

[0:28:42] ME: Oh, what brings me joy? So I think I answered part of that question earlier, which is, of course, meeting people, bugging with people. But I love when I see my strategies come to light. We’re both [inaudible 0:28:58]. We do the planning, we do the assessing, the planning, the implementation. For me, it’s the implementation. I like to see things flourish. I like to see the plans, the goals, and milestones being met. People don’t like to plan for failure. I look for failures, because those are opportunities. It tells me, “Oh, wait. Hold up. Something’s been communicated to me as well.” So I love to see things come into light. I love to see when my clients meet their goals and they’re happy. One, most recently, since last October, through a social media campaign, one, $20,000 grant.

 

For me, that makes me happy to know that the strategy that I implemented for them, got them to their goal, but also knowing that I’m building this level of trust with this client, and that they’re going to share this whether it’s an impact report, or through their testimony about the work that Plug Communications has done.

 

[0:29:53] JW: I love it. If people want to get in contact with you, or want to know more about the Plug, how they can get it in touch with the Plug? How do they get in touch? What they need to do?

 

[0:30:03] ME: Two things. They can get in touch with me here, follow me on Instagram, and on Twitter. This is my name on all of my social media platforms. and on LinkedIn. You can send me a LinkedIn InMail. I’ll send you a link so that we can chat, we can do a discovery call, and talk more about whether you’re looking for consultation, and/or guidance as a public health practitioner going through the health communication path.

 

[0:30:29] JW: And the Instagram and Twitter handle is @munchydaplug. 

 

[0:30:34] ME: @munchdaplug.

 

[0:30:35] JW: All right, got it. Well, I appreciate you for joining me on this amazing [inaudible 0:30:41] I need to go write my own dictionary.

 

[0:30:45] ME: We can work on this together. This is a family affair, yes. We’re going to build on it.

[0:30:49] JW: We’ll make sure to have some folks put in some other words, some other phrases that we need to know, that we need to be aware of. I appreciate you for joining me and this is going to wrap up another episode of The Public Health Joy Podcast.

I am so grateful for this time we got to spend together. If you enjoyed this episode, I need you to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. For more information on transforming public health research into positive community impact, visit www.joyeewashington.com. This is where research meets relationship. I’ll see you next time on The Public Health Joy Podcast.

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