Tyler Perry, who is doing his part to help people during the coronavirus plague pandemic, asks churches: ‘What good are you if you are not meeting the needs of the community?’

Humanitarian, actor and filmmaker, Tyler Perry, wants Black America armed with information as Black people are dying at higher rates than their white counterparts. In an interview with theGrio, Perry even went into his famous retired Madea character saying in her iconic voice: “I am going to get that Vaseline.”

Madea was speaking of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Grady and Emory Hospitals in Atlanta, Georgia asked Perry to take the vaccine to spur more Black vaccine participation. His informational conversation, COVID-19 vaccine and the Black community, A Tyler Perry Special, airs on BET Thursday night at 9 p.m. eastern.

“Let me just tell you what I have learned and I have found,” said Perry.

The cable special includes a Perry conversation with a group of doctors about the disease and medical personnel administering the Pfizer vaccination to the actor and media mogul.

“Here is the alternative, you can take your chances with COVID-19 and unfortunately you don’t know how it is going to affect you,” he said. “There are some people who are asymptomatic and are fine and there are other people who get it and die.”

In the early stages of the pandemic, Perry lost someone in his filmmaking studio community. He says he wants everyone to do their part but he is calling out others in the Black community who can do more.

“I have been so extremely disappointed with the church. It is almost heartbreaking … it is heartbreaking on so many levels,” said Perry, “looking at the church and what it means to be a church to be there for the people. It means having the doors open. It means feeding the people. It means getting COVID testing. It means getting the vaccine done at the church.

“Being the church means all of those things. And if a church is not stepping up to meeting those needs, then what good are you?” Perry added. “To stand in the pulpit and just preach about God and Jesus and He is going to make a way when you have the opportunity and you have the ability to help somebody and you don’t. What good are you?”

Perry did, however, acknowledge there are many churches who are doing “the right thing,” including giving back and feeding the community.

“I am not talking about them,” said Perry.

“I have been really really disappointed in them not stepping up to meet the need. ‘Cause that is what the heart and backbone of [what] the church is.”

Meanwhile, as Perry is feeding thousands of the hungry at his Atlanta studio and informing the public on the COVID-19 vaccine, Black Congressman Cedric Richmond says the Biden White House is also working with “influencers, entertainers, and pastors … civic groups and Black Greek fraternities and sororities” to give them access to the new U.S. surgeon general to spread the word for people to get vaccinated.

SOURCE: the Grio – April Ryan