Zoe Saldana (4:44)

Good morning.

Richard Karn (4:45)

How are you?

Zoe Saldana (4:46)

I'm doing pretty good. Doing pretty good. Just been working, moving and grooving good.

Richard Karn (4:51)

All right, everybody, it's Woody over in your house. Real Life for crown the podcast. Back with the queen of the queens of digital marketing, Ms. Tina, continuing her human, or I shouldn't say human sex trafficking series. Right, Ms. Tina. And y' all lifers. I really appreciate you sharing and making this work. While Ms. Tina and I were recording last week, I had a lifer reaching out to me about how they could help. And they have business. Southern punch down there, Misstina. Not too far from where you're at, but it's Very important. And, you know, it's just. I don't know what to say. Yeah. I was thinking about it last night. Ms. Tina. The people think about human trafficking, you know, and the first thing that pops in my mind is hauling somebody across the border, you know, like coyotes. Whether it be.

Zoe Saldana (5:46)

Because that's what the media wants you to believe.

Richard Karn (5:48)

Yeah. And. And. But that's. That's not where the meat of it is. Right.

Zoe Saldana (5:54)

The meat of it is, is young American girls that are. Are unhappy at home, do not. Or something is going on. They're in foster care. Is huge incidents of trafficking in foster care.

Richard Karn (6:08)

Right.

Zoe Saldana (6:09)

Even been cases where. Where girls in foster care, it's been proven that their foster parents have trafficked them. Number of cases like that. And you don't hear about that.

Richard Karn (6:20)

No, you don't. I had a reading a case yesterday about foster parent who. One of the kids died and she had other kids. And they. I think we were making like 400 to $1,000 a month per kid. I think it was in South Carolina. But I guess, you know, that would be. I guess if I was a human, if I was a sex trafficker, you could just pass the basic background test on that. And they're. They're looking to place these kids. And then. Wow.

Zoe Saldana (6:51)

I mean, because there's a huge foster crisis, foster care crisis in this country right now, so there's not enough workers really to oversee them properly. A lot of things slip through the cracks. And human trafficking is really prevalent in the foster care system.

Richard Karn (7:07)

Wow. Can you give me, like an example of a case that you. Not. You don't have to give names, but how it happened.

Zoe Saldana (7:13)

You know, I did read a case where an older couple, which the last people you would say, and it was an older Christian couple, and they were moving kids to Mexico in their home for a little bit of a time, like, you know, six months or so for the grooming process. Of course. Ready. And there's stories about how they kept them chained up or locked in the closet and various other things that this couple did while they were waiting to get ready to traffic them. And they would take them one by one and meet somebody at the border and they would go, now, see, in that case, that is. There's a lot of that going on. And there's also a lot of these uber wealthy.

Richard Karn (8:02)

What is that?

Zoe Saldana (8:03)

Like, uber wealthy.

Richard Karn (8:05)

Oh, uber wealthy.

Zoe Saldana (8:05)

No, like when you're talking about the Epstein case.

Richard Karn (8:08)

Right, right, right.

Zoe Saldana (8:08)

All of those. The Diddy case. Some of those trafficking victims have never known anything but trafficking from the age of like. Like I was when I was 15 or 16. Somebody could have taken me to one of those ditty parties. Easy, easy. Or. Or been in the Epstein situation. Easy.

Richard Karn (8:29)

Yeah.

Zoe Saldana (8:30)

Because after you've had her in your care for about a year, it takes about probably a year to really thoroughly groom somebody to where they can go somewhere without their trafficker. And they're so controlled in their mind that they do exactly what they're told, even if they have a chance to get away. So it doesn't look like trafficking because the girl clearly has a way to walk away.

Richard Karn (8:54)

Yeah, that's crazy. And I think we do a lot of stories about these kids that are found locked in closets and dog cages and all kinds of crazy shit like that. And then when they're found, they don't ever say anything about the sex part. But I would guess.

Zoe Saldana (9:12)

I would assume that a lot of different cases. Some. Some cases. There was a case local here that involved a young girl that was caged in the back of her house.

Richard Karn (9:27)

Yeah, I don't really get that. Why would you cage them if you weren't doing something else nefarious with them, you know?

Zoe Saldana (9:34)

Exactly.

Richard Karn (9:36)

I don't know. Just get a dog or something. I don't get it. But I would think that a lot of those cases that get reported when children get found, they don't ever advertise this like in law enforcement. Whenever someone committed suicide, we never did a news release on it. Maybe they don't want to open that box of worms because especially if it's an awesome child or whatever, then OCS or somebody's going to. It's a flat.

Zoe Saldana (10:01)

Then the case takes a whole different trajectory, you know, and so a lot of times this foster care system is already strained. So, you know, I don't know what keeps it out of the news and keeps other things out of the news because there's a lot of things that go on that are un. Anyway. Yeah, there's a lot of things that go undetected by the media but are still going on. I mean, are things that even the media might get a wind of and something else is going on that's more important.

Richard Karn (10:32)

Yeah.

Zoe Saldana (10:32)

Shoved down on the bottom.

Richard Karn (10:36)

Yeah. The. The queens of digital marketing. And we talked about how you got started and everything. Can. I was wondering. Can you tell me how you find. I don't know if you call them clients or queens or whatever. I'm sure difference in every case. Well, can you give me an example of how you found someone?

Zoe Saldana (10:58)

There's a lot of different ways. In the beginning, I was involved in advocacy. And so there's a lot of advocacy groups on Facebook and on social media where people network with one another. And so when I originally was given the scholarships, I posted on the. On these groups and asked. I was looking for a survivor that had been exited for a year and was stable and could take these masterclasses. And so then we created an application process on our website. And when we get an application, we actually require that they do, like, a little essay, not about their story, but about any kind of computer skills they have or maybe if they've had a job in the past. Because some of these ladies, especially the older ones, they go in and out. You know, they come out of. They come out of sex trafficking, and because of some situation, and there's no. There's no resources for them to get well and to help heal themselves.

Richard Karn (12:01)

Right.

Zoe Saldana (12:01)

It's not available in their area, or they don't know where to go look for it. I mean, I have actually have a girl right now that I've had since we very first opened Queens. And this particular girl I got from a friend of mine, she said, hey, I know this girl that was with this pimp. She got locked up in federal prison because he was caught with an underage girl. I think I talked about her the last time. She didn't have access to services. She went to prison because she was in the car with the underage girl. She got a lighter sentence. So she stayed about two years. She got out, and there was no services or trafficking services offered to her. She wasn't vocal enough because she couldn't look anybody in the eye. She couldn't talk because she traumatized.

Richard Karn (12:51)

She'd be down, right?

Zoe Saldana (12:54)

And when we got her, she would barely. We had our group meeting. She would barely look anybody in the eye. And now she actually. I actually ended up hiring her from my company to listen to phone calls as a QA agent. And she did that for about eight months, nine months. And just recently, we promoted her to affiliate manager, which is basically a job, which means that she's talking to customers all day, right? She comes in our meetings and she smiles. But I had to take control of getting her some therapy because there was no resources for her. She was in Atlanta. I called all over Atlanta, and there was no. There was only housing resources. So if she was ready to go in a house, she could. But she was already stable in her own place. She was. She just needed this counseling services. So I connected her with a trauma therapist there. And after about four sessions, she really started brightening up. She still goes now and she's doing very well.

Richard Karn (14:00)

That's awesome. So survivor thriver, definitely on that one. So you said. And I didn't even think about this, like prerequisite, I guess, for you to take someone is they gotta be out for a year.

Zoe Saldana (14:16)

Yes. And we've actually refined our prerequisites now. Excuse my redneck accent and that word. So now they have to be exited for a year. They have to be in a stable environment. Like they have to have housing. They can't be homeless, unfortunately, hard for them to keep up from the program. And they need to be. And now they need to be under case management.

Richard Karn (14:46)

Meaning case management.

Zoe Saldana (14:49)

Meaning like so that some. Some person from some organization is over their case and is managing. Helping them find housing, helping them find counseling, helping them. Because it's just too hard for me to try to do that part.

Richard Karn (15:06)

Yeah, you can't. You can't go in and break the wheel all by yourself.

Zoe Saldana (15:10)

No, I can't. That's right. It takes collaboration from other partners. So we're constantly striving to get partners for different resources for our ladies.

Richard Karn (15:20)

Interesting. The. And so you just get them from all over the United States. Like that you said last time that countrywide we are.

Zoe Saldana (15:31)

We're countrywide and we sometimes we get them. Now recently I attended a conference in Seattle, Washington, and I met was called Shelter 2025. And it was a conference for housing programs all over the country. So we've made some contacts there. And some of these programs are already have like a desk set, like a remote office environment set up. But they haven't gone any further in because they don't have a curriculum and they don't know what to do from that point. Well, I could come in and take that setup. I don't have to spend the whole $3,200 that it costs to survive in our program. I can spend less because the computer and the desk and everything is right there. So I'm just having to cover my salaries for the teachers.

Richard Karn (16:21)

Right. The. So that's really cool because that helps with your prayer eloquence. Right. And helps with the cost for you to help get them out. Ms. T, tell me about when you do this traveling. You go to conferences and I would guess there's a variety different angles and conferences that you can go see. But when you do this, you're paying for this yourself.

Zoe Saldana (16:48)

Yeah, we're paying for it. Out of Queens. Sometimes I travel. A lot of times I travel for Ringlab Media and there's trade shows that we go to and then the trade shows that we regularly attend, they sometimes give Queens a booth too. So and then I have women in the organization that are already there for the conference. So sometimes we'll take Tyra's man in the booth and letting the and for that angle. What I'm trying to do is to get contracts for my young ladies so that when we, you know, I talked about we have Queens calls, which is a call center for the survivors to actually have it be employed and not just get trained to be employed, but be employed. And those contracts would be like insurance companies looking for somebody to verify leads off of Facebook or a at&t sometimes runs services like that. But it's hard to keep get the contracts because the contracts are going overseas to where they pay $3 an hour.

Richard Karn (17:55)

Right.

Zoe Saldana (17:57)

And you know, it cost me $15 an hour for someone on the phone.

Richard Karn (18:02)

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Zoe Saldana (26:30)

We've been taking a lot of different angles with that, but that would be the purpose of going to that trade show would be to find somebody that we could run a call center operation for. And then like I said, the last conference I went to was for women that own human trafficking shelters and programs. And so the angle was to hopefully be able to get other survivors from their programs to, to work to be in our program as well simultaneously.

Richard Karn (27:00)

Yeah. And if you get them each one of those set up like a media room, right. Even if you had to invest in in it through the queens of digital marketing, help them invest in, then like you're, like I said, you're cutting down on costs. And so y' all, you know, this is. Ms. Tina is not getting rich. You heard her last time say she funded most of it herself. And the who need you to just, you know, I know there's so many.

Zoe Saldana (27:28)

Needs if I don't get in front of these people. So not only am I funding most of this myself, but a lot of times I'll fund my own travel. Not out of the Queen's budget. Because the Queen's budget might is thin right now.

Richard Karn (27:40)

Right.

Zoe Saldana (27:41)

It takes me two full time employees and I'm not paying myself. Obviously I'm paying into the program, but it's grown because the need is there. There's a real need for these transitional services. Like I said before, there's money for boots on the ground, there's money for housing, there's money for rescue. But the money for transitioning is really far and few between. There's not a lot of grants out there for transitioning. It's getting more noticed now. I mean, after the Polaris survivor study came out and they said that 75% of the women who exit trafficking still live in poverty two years after ex.

Richard Karn (28:24)

Yeah. And that's just setting you up for failure. Setting them up to go back to. To either being groomed again or sucked back in by someone like, hey, look how you're living. You know, I'll take care of you.

Zoe Saldana (28:36)

If somebody needs to feed their kids and that's the only way they know what to do. They gotta. That's what they're gonna do.

Richard Karn (28:43)

Yeah.

Zoe Saldana (28:44)

Because they're a mother and that mother instinct to feed their kids is more important than anything else. And they've already been desensitized, desynthesized to it.

Richard Karn (28:52)

Right.

Zoe Saldana (28:53)

You know, and so it's easy for them for. It was easy for me. I mean, I'm going to tell you, like, I was out of physical. I didn't have a trafficker anymore and I was living as a single mom and I really hadn't worked on that trauma that I had. And so every time my checkbook would get overdrawn and, and I would be feeling the heat from bills, then I would end up doing it again because I needed to and I need to survive. And I just think I had to take care of my daughter.

Richard Karn (29:23)

Yeah. And that's proven throughout history. Like, you know, in the Middle east or whatever, they cut off your hand if you steal a loaf of bread. Right. Well, you know what, if you're got to feed your kids, you will take that chance. And so you slip right back in and there's certainly people waiting there to then want to jump.

Zoe Saldana (29:47)

Yeah, it doesn't take long. I actually remember a scenario in Vegas. So here I am in Vegas. I've been working for an advertising agency. I'm running a campaign. I'm making decent money. I've got my daughter there in school. We had just actually left after Hurricane Katrina and that's the first. I went to Vegas right after Katrina and so here I am in Vegas and I put an ad up back then, you know, Back Page and Craigslist. That's Back Page that's currently being sued right now.

Richard Karn (30:21)

Are they. I noticed that you can't find them in like Google Search anymore. Like, but you could type them in and it comes up. But it used to be Back page. I know Craigslist banned it. The back page was where all the s Cors and stuff were listed.

Zoe Saldana (30:37)

Right. But they're no longer. They're actually currently being sued. There's a class action lawsuit that survivors are actually suing Backpage now.

Richard Karn (30:45)

Wow. Wow.

Zoe Saldana (30:48)

Because that's how trafficking prevailed. These guys would put ads on Backpage for the girls, and then they would scare them into submission and they would send customers in and out all day long, and they really didn't have much choice of it.

Richard Karn (31:03)

And they move them all around. They don't just stay in the same city, they move around constantly. But you're saying you were in Vegas?

Zoe Saldana (31:10)

I was in Vegas. I put an ad on. Back then, it was still Craigslist. When I did this, I put an ad on Craigslist and I went to a location, and that location, there was a pimp there. And so. And he didn't. He didn't come at me like, in a violent way. He came at me in a charming way. And that part of me that hadn't been healed and that felt overwhelmed and felt like I couldn't do this lifestyle anymore and that I couldn't pay the bills. My husband had passed away and I was trying to do it by myself, and I became entangled with him like that. And then I had to, like, I had, like, move somewhere and get away from him and try to do it again. And I go back to AA and I'd go to substance abuse counselors, and none of that was working for me. I had trauma that needed to be treated. And the only thing that can treat that really well is emdr, brain spotting, and those type of methodologies that really get into those memories and kind of subside them enough for you to be able to live a normal life.

Richard Karn (32:24)

Yeah. And you've proven this time and time again through your survivor thrivers. Right. Something. It's not just like, people get into sex trafficking for the fun of it. Right. And like, most of them, like, I say, like, 98. And like, and it's not. Not everybody, but it's like offenders, people offend against kids. Most of them have the trauma from. From being offended against when they were young. And. Wow. So.

Zoe Saldana (32:59)

So it just becomes a cycle of hurt people, hurting people, you know, and a lot of people, like, like, I'm the first one to say, you know, people a lot of times paint the picture of a trafficker or a client or somebody that's. That's sex trafficking. Some, they. They paint this picture of them being horrible people. But in the end of the day, Jesus loved everybody, right?

Richard Karn (33:21)

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Zoe Saldana (33:23)

The men and the traffickers and the people that are involved in this on the other side are broken too. So then you have broken people hurting broken people.

Richard Karn (33:33)

Yeah. Vicious cycle. And then it's crazy. Did you See, like in the last couple days in Louisiana, all the raids on the massage parlors, I have been seeing that and including. They just had another one. They had one right up the road from me and Zachary and they said they had everybody going in there, from police to whatever, all hours of the night.

Zoe Saldana (33:57)

And there's another one over there by Calandro's over on Perkins Road that I, that I just saw. And it was closed when I went by there to go to the grocery store the other day.

Richard Karn (34:08)

But they, they, they done like 20 in, in the past week. The Attorney General's office is doing a big sweep on them and saying that the massage board, whatever does. Yeah. Might cite them because they get a complaint, they reopen another name. But that's got these strict mean.

Zoe Saldana (34:28)

Well, that's gotten a lot, that's gotten a lot of publicity for the deportation thing. Immigrants.

Richard Karn (34:35)

That's right. Yeah.

Zoe Saldana (34:36)

But that's not the angle there. The angle is these women are trafficked. There are nail salons all over the city that the women that work in there are paid very low wages. They can't speak English, so they don't have any other opportunity. They bring them their specific. Typically to work in the nail shop. They work like 16 hour days sometimes.

Richard Karn (34:59)

And we talk working. They're not doing nails, they're prostitute. And the. We did an undercover thing. I did one years and years ago. I remember the smell of the place when I walked in. They had showers and whatever. They would shower clients and then do whatever in the back rooms. But once you got to the. Well, I was outside with the mic, but when I went in, we did the arrest. But you're right, I mean, we arrested. Everybody was there. But it's not the people that are making the money.

Zoe Saldana (35:33)

No, it's not like it's not the people that are making the money. And that's often what happens is that trafficking survivors, trafficking victims often get locked up with no services. Now that's, I will say that that's changing a lot now. Governor Edwards put a lot of stuff in place for human trafficking survivors where in law enforcement there's people that are trained to handle trafficking survivors and to spot them. So hopefully when these ladies from these Chinese raids go into contact with law enforcement, someone is there to speak for them and to make sure that they're not treated as criminals. But as, as victims. Yeah, it often doesn't happen. It often. Especially if there's a language barrier.

Richard Karn (36:23)

Yeah.

Zoe Saldana (36:24)

Not a lot of people running around the Baton Rouge Police Department that can speak Chinese.

Richard Karn (36:28)

Yeah. Or Vietnamese or whatever. And, you know, it's. It. I don't think there's any difference between the Dixon mafia and the ones that are on the massage parlors as far as being criminal organizations. They're making.

Zoe Saldana (36:45)

That's organized crime. And there's like, there's gangs that are doing trafficking and they're initiating girls from, you know, from this. From these marginalized communities and initiating them into trafficking and, you know, and they. They rape them, basically.

Richard Karn (37:04)

Yeah.

Zoe Saldana (37:04)

And then they're so. They're scared to. For their life. And so they go out and work and there's nobody, like, watching them or tying them down or they're so mentally scared of these men that they're out there prostituting themselves for the benefit of these traffickers because they're not really. They're. They're. They're being trafficked. They're not really prostituting themselves. They're being trafficked.

Richard Karn (37:30)

Right. So I want everybody to understand, take. Take a time and think about this from a different angle. Whether it's massage parlors or someone's oh, walk on the street or Back Page or whatever else. I don't know what the. The new, you know, Craigslist got busted off and Back Page took off. And I don't know who to fill the void after Back Page if this suit shuts him down, but somebody will, because it'd always be there. But this. It's really. I mean, it's. It's a. It's horrible for the victims, but when you see them out there or. And look, the. A lot of times it'd be pretty, you know, well dressed on the higher end or, you know, what have you for the clientele, et cetera, this is. There's something going. Else going on. I mean, it's a crime and they are victims. And people say it's a victimless crime, but it's not.

Zoe Saldana (38:29)

There are other people that are on the side and even. And yeah, there are people that want to make money that way. There are women that are not. That are not actually trafficked and they're keeping their money theirselves. But these young women, they have some trauma in their lives or they wouldn't make a decision like that. And if people would look at a hurt person as a hurt person and not judge the girl that's standing on the street corner on Plank Road or women in massage parlors or, you know, these different women that are arrested for prostitution, if you look beyond that, there's some trauma. They're broken inside.

Richard Karn (39:14)

If they had a. If it's. If it showed itself, the psycho is talking about the brokenness, the sex trafficking part. If it showed itself as a bullet hole, you would have some sympathy, you know, and like if you look at somebody and they just got stabbed and they're bleeding, you would have some sympathy. But you can't, you don't see it on these because like you said, they're groomed and you know, they're put out there and it's worked. Hey, present yourself.

Zoe Saldana (39:45)

The way they act in and, and there's, I mean even in the local strip clubs there's women in that condition and you see them acting all like trying to flirt and cutting up. But they've been groomed. If they don't bring in a certain amount of money then they're going to get beat and they know that the way to get more money is to be personable. They're not going to make any money if they're. So they're groomed to have that attitude.

Richard Karn (40:12)

Yeah, that's crazy. So let's talk about queens of digital marketing. And I want to get towards the end of each one of these episodes we're talking about. Tell me, you don't have to say names or anything.

Zoe Saldana (40:33)

There's a lot of things to say about queens. And number one, I never really imagined that it would be what it was today. Queens started as an idea to give professional women in the digital marketing space an opportunity to network with one another so that they wouldn't have to deal with a male dominated arena that really left them out. And it turned into this human trafficking organization that educates survivors in the professional into professional careers. There's some hiccups and there's some tough spots. You know, like right now, like I said, we have some growing pains and we've grown past a point that I can no longer physically support it.

Richard Karn (41:24)

Right.

Zoe Saldana (41:24)

And so we do have, we do have a couple of, a couple of fundraisers right now. We have something that the whole country could participate in is we have a silent auction that's prefacing our cocktails for a cause party that's going to be over in Denver at the Contact IO conference. And it's a conference for people that are in telemarketing. And so we go to this conference because we sell calls to phone rooms and so the women in the industry get together and we throw this party every year and we have cocktails in our d' oeuvres and we usually have a human trafficking speaker to come in. This year I'm actually going to be presenting. We have testimonies from our survivors and I'm doing a presentation called Voices of Survivors. And as I go through, I'm going to talk about the program and these women are actually on these, on these audio files talking about how Queens has changed their lives, how having a businesswoman as a mentor to look up to and to see that even though she's a woman, she can make it. Because that's the other problem that we fight against, is that they feel like they don't have a place in business, but we show them the opportunity in business for them and to take those same skills that you learned to learn to please somebody. Just like we were talking about that friendly, that hustle to take that and put that into your own good and building something for yourself and your children.

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Zoe Saldana (50:14)

Yes, it is online. And I'm sorry I was a mess at sending you the links. Cindy is going to have to remind me because I get. So I didn't send them, but I also sent a link for the Siren auction. The auction takes place on August 28th in Denver. @ the cocktails for a cause. But anybody can bid on it. We have things like Amazon gift cards and Target gift cards, Apple gift cards. It's all gift cards.

Richard Karn (50:43)

Now.

Zoe Saldana (50:43)

There are some things that are specific to our industry, like one of the call tracking platforms, they gave away $3,000 in credits. And so that's not for everybody, but there are stuff for everybody. A bunch of gift cards, Apple, I think we're going to put a Sephora on there and a massage and a spa finder. So there'll be spy finder, wine.com, target, Amazon.

Richard Karn (51:08)

But. And you're dealing a lot with, I mean, business people. The real life real crown can donate a commercial spot. Oh, let's do that. We wanted to. I'll get with Cindy and we'll get the information on it. And you know, she has all the stuff. And so we'll donate a spot and anything helps. Right. And because we've done it in the past for Lopea, we do the auctions before the live events and all that. Also the. I have a live coming up July 19th in Hammond. I don't know if you'll be in town. It's the Southeastern Main Theater. And if we could put something up, like Lopa does a booth and something like that with people. People. And they're coming from all over the country. And I do a lot.

Zoe Saldana (52:04)

I have some cards, information cards with a QR code on it. And I'll get some new ones made for the QR code for the auction and so the people can donate through the auction. We have two big fundraisers a year. We have that. And we have a golf tournament in January and more of that. Our golf tournament is going to be every year is in Miami. And I'm so sad that we're leaving Miami because it's one of my favorite places.

Richard Karn (52:28)

I like Miami.

Zoe Saldana (52:28)

I love that. Just a quick note. I love the beach in Miami.

Richard Karn (52:32)

Yeah.

Zoe Saldana (52:32)

Because it's not like Gulf Shores where you got to trudge through the sand and it's like a short beach and all the hotels offer room service beachside.

Richard Karn (52:43)

I love that cube. Yeah, I like the Cuban coffee that's about this big. So where's the golf tournament going to be?

Zoe Saldana (52:53)

We do it as part of a conference lead Generation World. And we've done it for three. This is our third year that we just did. But upcoming in January. This year we're going to do it in Las Vegas. There's a bigger trade show in February, end of January, beginning of February. And we're going to be Doing it at Las Vegas Country Club, which is right off the strip. Yeah. So we have those two fundraisers and we do a couple of other things. At one time I had. And I'm probably going to put this on the auction is a weekend at the Cajun Queen. You know, you and I talked about the cage a little bit and that's my Airbnb. And it's over in Stevensville. It's right on the bayou by Doran's Landing. Oh, wait, let me pronounce that right. Dry Ransack landing, because you'll get a bunch of figures. Oh, that's not how you say that.

Richard Karn (53:49)

Right, right.

Zoe Saldana (53:51)

It's water. You can actually park your boat right there and go into Lake Verrett. It's beautifully decorated. We did it like, I did it like girl style. So there's like a lot of high end luxury pieces inside the Airbnb so that the women feel, you know, comfortable while their guys out there duck hunting or fishing.

Richard Karn (54:11)

Right.

Zoe Saldana (54:11)

And they can be in luxury and have their own little vacay.

Richard Karn (54:15)

That's awesome. And y' all, if you're not from Louisiana, I think Ms. Tina and I are going to do something from there so we can do like a live and show them what the real bayou. Nothing is beautiful and peaceful. And we had our home in Marpol, which is. We were on the river was in the front yard and the bayou's in the back. The. And still go down to. To show Van to my buddy's camp. We have a little piece of property. There's nothing like is.

Zoe Saldana (54:48)

There's nothing like the bayous, you know, especially, you know, the birds. The, the wildlife is everywhere. You see these big old bullfrogs that are as big as my hands apart jump up out of the water. They have herons. I have a blue heron that landed on my porch on my deck. Yeah, it is. It's simply beautiful there. But we might even be able to film. Film in the pontoon. If we could get captain to get the pontoon out there, we could. We could film from Lake Verse.

Richard Karn (55:17)

Yeah, that'd be awesome. Right? And. And then the blue heron. It's my, actually my favorite bird in Louisiana. And that was my daddy's too. And the day, the morning he died, I had his doors open in the bed where he could overlook his pond and everything. And one flew in and landed. So I think I'm gonna get a tattoo of that.

Zoe Saldana (55:38)

Wow. I have to send you my picture of Frank. So there's this blue heron that hangs out in the Area where I'm at. And anytime someone's fishing off the deck, then he comes, he kind of circles around, and sometimes he'll land and the people in that neighborhood feed him fish.

Richard Karn (55:55)

Yeah.

Zoe Saldana (55:56)

So he comes around and he's become friendly.

Richard Karn (55:58)

That's awesome. That's awesome. So good stuff. And then let's talk about again the. Any y' all. We will get the links posted to everything, not only the Queensland digital marketing, but to the auction. And like last week when we were on the business, owner was actually text messaging me. Hey, I just listened to this. And he had some stuff in his life early on when all of a sudden he said, you know, I want to help, blah, blah, blah. But the auction, how to donate to you, to your 501C so you can help these victims become survivor throwers, y' all. It takes money, and these are real people. And. And, you know, it's as.

Zoe Saldana (56:47)

There's so many stories. There's so many stories. You know, there's girls that come from out of the country that end up in, like, trafficking raids here that are stuck here. So they have them. They. They place them in the housing programs here. They have a hard time speaking English. I have a young lady now that we hired as a graphic designer because she turned out to be a very talented graphic designer. And. And she has some horrific things happening to her, like, in her life. And the good there was, we discovered that talent. And now she works full time for Queens as our social media manager and graphic designer.

Richard Karn (57:27)

That's awesome. And I think, you know, it continues. The need, the real need is. It's like me doing a cold case. You got to put human faces on the victims, otherwise the people just become desensitized to it or they're not aware that. And I think we need to do that. And hopefully, maybe next week, you said at the conference you're going to play some audio tapes of survivor stories. Survivor, Survivor thriver stories. And maybe you get one to play at the end of the episode.

Zoe Saldana (58:02)

Yeah, I have to get permission from somebody. That's what's holding that up.

Richard Karn (58:05)

Yeah. And they don't have to say their name, but.

Zoe Saldana (58:07)

But they. It's. You still have to.

Richard Karn (58:09)

Yeah, I get it.

Zoe Saldana (58:11)

Media doesn't respect people's stories, so I make it a point to make sure that. Respect everybody's story.

Richard Karn (58:16)

Yeah, I get it. I get it. And that's why I don't cover stories of, you know, homicides and stuff like that without talking to the victim's families. Right. And so I understand that but we need to put. Constantly put human faces. Not. Not names. And this one is different, I guess, but the. It's real. It's real. It's real people. These people eat to see their faces. Right, right, right. No, I don't need that. We don't need the faces. There's eating. You could just tell the story and call it Jane Doe and make up a different city. When people need to understand and this is how. And they. They sleep, they eat, they go to the bathroom. They're just like you and I. They're just in a bad situation and they need help. And ultimately, this is a system, Queensland Digital Marketing, that can help them thrive again and break that cycle.

Zoe Saldana (59:16)

There's an expression that my daddy used to say, and I try to live by that. We're not given a handout, we're given a hand up. We're giving a hand for somebody to help themselves become a better. To become more. Have a better life.

Richard Karn (59:31)

Right, right. And that's an amazing thing. And, you know, it's your mission. And it's awesome that you're on that mission. Right. Because you are a survivor thriver. And you've lived it, unfortunately, that you lived it, but fortunately you did because you're saving a lot of lives. And it's. It's a lot. It's not y' all. You know, it's not just being groomed and people taking advantage and pimping them and use them for money, but it's narcotics. And ultimately it all goes back to. I would assume the majority of them go back to it because somebody. They're broken and they're hurting and you can't fix it.

Zoe Saldana (60:13)

A lifetime of trauma. A lifetime of trauma after something like this.

Richard Karn (60:17)

That's right. So it's not just something. Whatever happened to them when they were younger, every day they're out there being trafficked is trauma, whether you own it or not.

Zoe Saldana (60:30)

Trauma that they feel for the rest of their life. I mean, you know, Woody, even today, I get triggered by stuff, right? My fiance can look at me sideways, and I won't even say anything. I think automatically that I did something wrong because of the way he looked at me. And I feel like I need to apologize to him because he looked at me a certain way. It's just gonna always be ingrained in me. But today I recognize it. I know that that's trauma. And when I start having those thoughts because I've had emdr, I'm having those thoughts that he's, you know, he. He's mad at me because he looked at me a certain way and something's going to happen. I can stop myself from that, you know, do some kind of exercise or something that'll take me out of that triggered place.

Richard Karn (61:20)

And, and even though you're having to do that, it's still, I mean, thankfully you recognize, but it's still sad, right? It's still something happened and I'm still.

Zoe Saldana (61:33)

Like feeling those things.

Richard Karn (61:34)

And, and for everyone out there who has a loved one, you wouldn't want them to go through this. So. But the light in the tunnel is the queens of digital marketing 501c y' all. We're going to put up everything, tag it, support it. I encourage my friends that are business owners to donate to the auction. It doesn't matter what you donate, it's just cool.

Zoe Saldana (61:59)

I think what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna put up the. A weekend at the Airbnb.

Richard Karn (62:05)

That's awesome.

Zoe Saldana (62:06)

Yeah, I'm gonna put that up on the auction. On the auction. And so it'll be real exciting to be able to be able to win a weekend on the bayou.

Richard Karn (62:15)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's awesome. And I tell you what, and you put it up.

Zoe Saldana (62:21)

I'm gonna do it today. I have time today. I'm leaving. We're leaving Friday to go to Branson for the World Series of softball. There you go, the Outlaws.

Richard Karn (62:30)

There you go.

Zoe Saldana (62:31)

Year old granddaughter, she's playing in the World Series.

Richard Karn (62:34)

Awesome. It's beautiful there too. And good luck on that. Right, and so y' all, here is an example. Grandmother now obviously Mother before survivor of sex trafficking. Her whole life abused, beat down, came out because of queens. Well, and established queens of digital marketing and is now helping other people. So we need to donate, we need to share it. Sharing equals, like homicide. Sharing equals tips. In this case, sharing equals awareness. And it's there probably if you walk in a Walmart and however many people are in there, probably at least one person is a victim of this. And you never know. You know, they're everywhere and bringing awareness. And let's help. We never know. You're never going to know who you help. Donate something and that dollar might go towards whatever.

Zoe Saldana (63:35)

Although we're a nationwide company, we do have three girls from Louisiana in the program right now.

Richard Karn (63:41)

Awesome, man. And, and the. Now, well, there's fruits in the pudding. Right. So. But thank you so much for it and we'll get everything posted and I really appreciate it and as always, it's a pleasure talking to you and your story's. Pretty fascinating. And I think you see the comments and, and everybody's, it's like a totally different angle of normally of what I do. And they're like, holy shit. Part of my friends. But the, they like, I didn't know, you know, so, but that's my, that.

Zoe Saldana (64:17)

Was my, that's my main goal is to really put a face on this and change, you know, after that movie, the Sound of Freedom, people really, the whole country really thought that that's what trafficking looked like. And, and that what that did is kept people's eyes on that type of trafficking and also the type of trafficking that's happening every day in this country.

Richard Karn (64:40)

Right. But everywhere. Every place. And so. All right, well, love and appreciate you. Thank you so much. And thank y' all for liking and listening and sharing. Y' all share. And, and do you hashtag Queens of digital marketing or just queen?

Zoe Saldana (64:57)

Yes, Queens of Digital marketing.

Richard Karn (64:59)

Hashtag Queens of Digital marketing. Everywhere. When you make your comment about this and y' all have been doing it, just hashtag queens of digital marketing and help it out. Help bring awareness. And thank you, Ms. Tina. Really, really, really appreciate you.

Zoe Saldana (65:12)

All right, thank you so much. Have a great day. Bye. Bye.

Richard Karn (65:15)

Bye. Yeah, the rights remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You got a right to an attorney prior to it during any question. If you can't afford one, the court appoint one for you. Do you understand your rights? And the wolf is at your door you running over that's for sure? You already know it's all about you cut you down, no matter by you. Now you better watch the.

Zoe Saldana (66:31)

This is.

Richard Karn (66:31)

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