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First of All with Victor Blackwell

Jabari Peoples' Family Demands To See Video Of Police-Involved Shooting; Family of 18-Year-Old Killed By Alabama Police Demands Answers; Reports: Coroner Completes Report In Jabari Peoples' Death; Confederacy Group Suing State Park Over Exhibit; Journalist Detained By ICE In Atlanta Appeals For Help From El Salvador; "Sinners" To Stream On Max in Black American Sign Language. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired July 12, 2025 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:52]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: First of all, this morning, a call for transparency. Now, this is one of those stories that it's not getting much national coverage, but we think it deserves it. It's in Alabama.

It's been three weeks since Jabari Peoples was shot and killed by police. He was 18 years old. His funeral is today in Aliceville. That's in the western part of the state.

But they're saying goodbye without the most important and really basic details about his death, about the shooting. There's video of it, but law enforcement won't release it, at least not yet. According to local officials, there's an autopsy report, but law enforcement won't let the family see that yet either. And here's what they are releasing.

A police in Homewood, Alabama say, an officer confronted Peoples in a local park after they say they smelled marijuana coming from his car. That was June 23rd. The police say that the officer told him and another person to get out of the car. That officer saw a gun in the pocket of the car door. And when the officer tried to pull Peoples or put him in handcuffs, they say that Peoples resisted.

They say Jabari Peoples broke away from the officer, grabbed the gun and in self-defense, that police officer shot him. But just days after the shooting, I spoke with Jabari Peoples' mother, his sister, and the family's attorney who say that story just does not make sense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEROY MAXWELL, PEOPLES FAMILY ATTORNEY: And if the idea is to have trust, transparency in our law enforcement and who they are and what they're about, this is not how you do it. Every single second that goes by where the family, the public isn't able to view the footage of what happened creates more and more mistrust. We know his character, and from witness statements there, the idea of him possessing a gun is just sort of unconscionable. And so we need this video footage. It needs to be released immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLACKWELL: And public pressure to release that footage is growing. The

investigation is now in the hands of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, but the ALEA has refused all requests from the Peoples family to see the footage. They say it would compromise the investigation.

There's a hearing next month on a petition to release the footage to the family. But a lawmaker who helped write the law that allows for the release of the video blames in part a family attorney for delaying the sharing of the footage. She accuses him of politicizing the shooting.

So joining me now is Alabama State Representative Juandalynn Givan, who helped write the bill that allows the disclosure of the body camera footage. Welcome back to the show. And let me start here. You want the family to see this video, correct?

JUANDALYNN GIVAN, (D-AL) REPRESENTATIVE: First of all, thank you, Victor, for having me back again. Listen, absolutely. I think it is a must that the family see the video. No mother, no mother should lose a child and especially a young man in college, and that dies under circumstances such as this. And now three weeks out and they have not seen it. My deepest condolences.

BLACKWELL: You have said that some of the statements made by the attorney, Leroy Maxwell, who we just heard from, are in part why they have not yet been able to see the video. What did you hear that you believe justifies holding this video back from the family?

GIVAN: Well, let me say I'm not sure if there's a justification. I actually responded because, of course, there had been some statements made that because of the bill that I sponsored two years ago in 2023, that, of course, the bill states that although we have created law to for a petition to be made where at one time there had been nothing. Absolutely nothing. That because of that bill and one of the sections in that says that the custodian of the record, of course, does not have to pending an investigation if they deem it necessary. Well, first of all, the Supreme Court has ruled and has not reversed that yet. And so, regardless of whether it's in black and white.

[08:05:07]

So my statement was simply because I had been working, I spoke with the attorney, I attempted to reach out to ALEA. I had a very good conversation with them. We had reached three points. And then of course, once the statement was released, what happens is there are certain other things within the investigation then that has to ensue because at that point, there was a time of investigation --

BLACKWELL: But what statement? What did the attorney say that you think --

GIVAN: I think initially he stated that there was an investigation. And I've spoken with Mr. Maxwell. He's a fine attorney and I value him and his leadership here in the state of Alabama. But there was a statement made that there was a gun based upon the one witness testimony as well as the fact that Mr. Peoples had been shot in the back.

Well, right now you're pending an investigation. You had not made a formal request even at that point form for the body cam. And if you're asking that of an independent investigator, many times even Rule 101 sometimes and we as lawyers know this. Certain things, once you begin to disclose, if there is a pending investigation going on with an independent agency, they definitely are going to have to then reverse course, go back to verify.

For instance, if there's a claim that there's a gun, but then there's not a gun, and then now there is a gun, that independent investigation team must go back, trace that gun from start to finish from its original.

BLACKWELL: But investigators say, and I hate to interrupt you here, but investigators know the facts because they have the video. They have already released their narrative of what happened. How does -- and they know that whether he was shot in the back or not. We've learned from our local affiliate that the coroner's report is complete. But they're holding that back as well from the family.

How does asserting what may be true, how is that incendiary in this case? Because investigators have been those (inaudible).

GIVAN: Let me simply say at the time that the statement was made by counsel, the autopsy had not been complete, nor had there been a second autopsy. This was immediately not too long after the family had learned. So there had not been an autopsy nor a second autopsy completed on set on June 29, when that statement was made.

So the investigation is ongoing. And if someone is now saying there's not a gun because no one has released that formal information yet, those independent investigators, investigation team individuals, or that particular in this instance, ALEA definitely is now going to have to go back and trace it.

The bottom line is the footage should be released.

BLACKWELL: It should be released.

GIVAN: It should be released and it should have been released.

BLACKWELL: Representative Givan, let me read for you. Hold on for a second. Let me read for you because the audience has heard your explanation and I want to read for you what Leroy Maxwell, the attorney for the family, said. He said that, "Representative Givan is putting up smoke and mirrors in an attempt to distract from the fact that she is solely responsible for the Peoples' family not being able to view body cam footage. ALEA cited the law she sponsored as the reason that they are not releasing the footage." Your response that he says you are the sole reason why this family cannot see this video.

GIVAN: My response is the same as it was. It's absolute foolery that he would have made that statement because my bill was created for the purpose of starting or giving a family an opportunity, or their representative to get a foot in the door, whereas they had no opportunities. Not only that, I was not the only sponsor of the bill. The Democratic Black Caucus, 20-something individuals sponsored that bill. I stand by my position also because I was trying to assist in a legislative capacity.

I had a conversation with Mr. Maxwell that I was going to make a call to ALEA, and ALEA was at that point going to allow the possibility of opening the doors to at least an initial review of the bodycam footage.

I'm proud of the legislation that I sponsored as well as I thank those members of the Democratic party. We're in a super majority red state here and it is very difficult to get legislation passed and hopefully that body cam will be released. But I stand by my initial state.

BLACKWELL: Representative Juandalynn Givan, thank you.

GIVAN: And I'm not wanting for smoke and mirrors. That's the other thing. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Thank you very much. I want to now bring in civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who is working with the Peoples' family.

You just heard that conversation. Your reaction to what you heard there from the representative?

BEN CRUMP, CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Well, Victor, I don't want to distract from the fact that Jabari Peoples is being laid to rest today, and there is no answers that have been presented to the family of the community of why this young man who had never ever been convicted of a crime, had never been arrested, was in his freshman year at Alabama A and M University is dead. I believe the state representative and both my counselor Leroy Maxwell. I've just joined this case to try to help get the truth of what happened here to this family. I think both of them mean well.

[08:10:37]

And so I don't want it to be a distraction about why the video is not being released. The video needs to be released, Victor. Think about the hypocrisy that we deal with, not just in Alabama, but you and I have done this far too many times all across America, taxpayers pay for body cam footage for times exactly as these.

And now, when we need it most to be transparent so we can build trust between law enforcement and communities of color, the law enforcement officials won't release the video. I mean, the young people, the activists say it best. They don't need to say anymore, just release the video and we can see what happened for ourselves. We don't need them to interpret things for us.

And I'll say this Victor, if you have somebody in our community do something wrong, inappropriate, or criminal, they never hold that video back. They release it immediately. Why don't they say the same thing when it's a police shoot and they say, oh, we can't release the video because that would interfere with the investigation. Well, why every time somebody in the community commit a crime, you

release that video on the evening news immediately, and the prosecutors can still do their job, and justice is still served. It can't be a double standard in America. And that's what we're fighting now more than ever. Because Jabari, people's life matters.

BLACKWELL: Attorney Crump, this was from our affiliate WBRC, but I wonder if you've had any conversations about getting a copy of the official coroner's report, this autopsy report, because ALEA, according to our local affiliate, is holding that back, too.

CRUMP: You're absolutely correct, Victor Blackwell. And so, on top of all the agony and pain and trauma that this family has had to endure since Jabari was shot and killed, they have had to get an independent autopsy performed before they buried him today. So we intend on next week being able to present the preliminary findings of that independent autopsy, because again, there seems to be this playbook when police shoot people, especially black people in America, that they delay, delay, delay.

We believe they want to sweep it under the rug, help people forget about it, like it's no big deal. Well, it is a very big deal when you shoot an 18-year-old black kid, and you say just take our word for it.

BLACKWELL: Well then, let me ask you this.

CRUMP: It was justified.

BLACKWELL: Let me ask you about this detail because you said that the preliminary reports of the autopsy, the independent autopsy are coming next week. Your counsel has already confirmed to CNN that he was shot in the back. Now is that from the other person who was in the car? Where does that information come from?

CRUMP: I do not know. And what I have said to everybody on the legal team now that I've gotten involved to lead this effort is we won't speculate. We only want to base everything on objective evidence. And so, Victor, the presumption is based on a medical examiner who has physically examined the body, we will rely on their expertise to offer to the public, and say let's demand.

BLACKWELL: That shot has dropped out. Our thanks to Ben Crump there. But his counsel has already said to CNN, to the other outlets that he was shot in the back. It seems like we're going to wait till next week to get, as Crump says, a medical professional to give their assessment of his death.

Still ahead, migrant children living in the U.S. could soon be cut off from vital health and education services. We'll tell you about proposed changes to the Head Start program.

[08:15:04]

Plus, a proposed civil rights exhibit at Georgia's Stone Mountain Monument may be in jeopardy. Why? The Sons of Confederate Veterans say the exhibit is illegal under state law. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The Trump administration is again cutting off access to federal benefits as part of its campaign against illegal immigration. Now, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. announced Thursday that his department is immediately restricting undocumented immigrants access to community health centers and Head Start.

[08:20:16]

Now first of all, they are already ineligible for most federal benefits, even though many of them pay federal taxes. But HHS has taken the additional step of rescinding a Clinton-era notice that defined some programs in a way that allowed undocumented migrants to use them. The National Head Start Association's executive director released a statement Thursday. And here's part of it.

"This decision undermines the fundamental commitment that the country has made to children and disregards decades of evidence that Head Start is essential to our collective future." Joining me now to talk about this decision is the association's deputy director, Dr. Deborah Bergeron. She led the Head Start office during President Trump's first term.

Welcome back to the show. Can we just start with scope here? Head Start Services, what, 750,000 to 800,000 children ballpark here, no hard numbers. How many kids does this impact?

DR. DEBORAH BERGERON, DEP. DIR., COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT INNOVATION NATL. HEAD START ASSOCIATION: Thanks so much for having me back, Victor. And that's a question I can't answer. For 60 years, Head Start has been serving our nation's most vulnerable children in communities all across the country. And since then, 40 million plus children have been served, and we've never screened for immigration status. So that isn't a question I can even ballpark.

BLACKWELL: And so in doing the research for this, there is actually a portion of Head Start that focuses on the migrant and seasonal worker families. The president has talked about how farmers, these big agribusinesses and meatpacking industries rely on these workers who've been here for so long, but are in the country undocumented. What has been the approach to these family and these children before this new guidance?

BERGERON: As I said, Head Start guidance is universal, whether it's the migrant program or the regular Head Start, early Head Start program. And eligibility is pretty specific. We do a pretty stringent screening of folks to make sure that they qualify based on eligibility. Immigration status is not part of that. So even in the migrant program, that is not something that that has been done.

BLACKWELL: And so now that it is part of it, is there even a mechanism to determine who is and who is not eligible? I mean, will they have to go to each family and ask for documentation?

BERGERON: I think that the press release is pretty high-level. As you saw, it's not really giving us a whole lot of guidance. We don't know a lot yet, but I think the bottom line here, Victor, is that, you know, this has the potential to cause harm in a program that for 60 years has been supporting our nation's youngest children, helping them prepare for kindergarten, ensuring they graduate from high school, they go to college, they earn more, they are self-sufficient. And the program works. It works the way it is today.

And so, to disrupt that and to create confusion and administrative burden on a program that already runs on a pretty tight budget doesn't seem like a smart thing to do. That the success that Head Start has had has been research-proven over decades. In fact, probably the best outcome is the idea of this investment.

$1 into Head Start result in at least a $7 return on that investment. I think even as good as the stock market is doing today, 700 percent is pretty good. And I think that to disrupt that process in this way just doesn't make sense.

BLACKWELL: And so to paraphrase the guidance, that dollar the administration says should be reserved for American citizens. I wonder, and again, you are trying to figure this out, as I'm sure many who work in Head Start currently are trying to figure it out. But the service is for the child up to age 5, right? And so, if their parents are undocumented, but they were born in this country, those children are American citizens. Are they then removed from the process because their parents are undocumented or in the country illegally despite their legal status?

BERGERON: I wish I had all those answers for you, Victor. I really don't. It is pretty high-level. We don't have the details. And I think the bottom line here as folks think about this is that Head Start is a win-win for children. Head Start is a win-win for the country. And why we would do something like this to disrupt such a positive, successful federal program, it just doesn't make sense.

[08:25:00]

BLACKWELL: And it's not daycare. It is health care. It is food for children who otherwise would not in many cases have a structured meal on a daily basis.

Dr. Deborah Bergeron, listen, I understand there are still lots of questions that have not been answered, but at least this is something that we are giving the attention that it certainly deserves. Thanks for your time this morning.

BERGERON: Thank you so much for having us. And for folks out there listening, there is public comment, 30 days of public comment on these rules posts on the federal registry on Monday. I'd invite everyone listening right now to go in and share your voice and share how successful Head Start is, and how we just shouldn't touch it in this way.

BLACKWELL: Dr. Bergeron, thank you. Still ahead, a new civil rights exhibit at Stone Mountain Park faces a lawsuit from the Sons of Confederate Veterans. Why? The group says the plan changes at this monument to the Confederacy violates state law.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:11]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: In the hills of Georgia, not far from Atlanta, Confederate leaders overlook the city of Stone Mountain. The image is carved into granite over many decades. It shows Confederate president Jefferson Davis, Generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson. It was completed in 1972. It is the country's biggest Confederate monument.

Today, it's the center of, like a family theme park, hiking destination as well. And from the beginning, the monument has been associated with racist movements and the modern KKK. 1915, the Klan burned across at its peak, emboldened by the release of the silent movie Birth of a Nation.

Well, now, in the wake of the social justice protests across the country in 2020, the Stone Mountain Memorial Association voted to build what they call a truth telling exhibit there. But whose truth? That's what triggered a new lawsuit filed earlier this week.

The exhibit aims to explain Stone Mountain's ties to the rebirth of the KKK segregation. But a Confederate group filed a lawsuit saying that the park is breaking state law. So with me now is that group's lawyer, Martin O'Toole. Thank you for coming in.

MARTIN O'TOOLE, SPOKESMAN, GEORGIA DIVISION OF THE SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS: Well, thank you for having us.

BLACKWELL: All right, so let's start here. I want to start with a Georgia law that you claim will be violated by the addition of this exhibition inside the memorial hall there. And the law, Georgia law is the memorial to the heroes of the Confederate States of America graven upon the face of Stone Mountain shall never be altered, removed, concealed, or obscured in any fashion, and shall be preserved and protected for all time as a tribute to the bravery and heroism of the citizens of the state who suffered and died in their cause.

You call the exhibit an attack on the traditional Southland and the American nation. How so?

O'TOOLE: Well, first of all, the part that you're reading there is not the part we're traveling under in the second lawsuit, which is that the Warner Museum exhibit. The law requires that Stone Mountain be maintained as a confederate memorial and a recreational area. That's 50-3-1 if you're reading from there, which is different from the real crux of the suit dealing with Warner.

And what we're saying is that the Warner exhibit, which is available on their website as of a couple of days ago, that every change that they want to make is not within keeping of the purposes of the park according to Georgia law.

BLACKWELL: OK. And so it should be maintained as a memorial to the confederates and those who died in their cause, what is the offense of context? Right. If the discussion is the cause, the implications, the motivations that would be and the consequences that would be focused on in this exhibition, what's the offense of that?

O'TOOLE: Well, the way we see it is intended to be a memorial, which means that you're supposed to take the positive aspects of the confederacy, memorialize them. If you take other memorials, for example, if you were to look at a John F. Kennedy monument or memorial, and it isn't going to talk about charges that he was unfaithful to his wife or anything like that, it's going to try to find and accentuate the positive aspects. And that's what we think this memorial should do.

The Warner exhibit has nothing positive to say about the confederacy whatsoever. That's our problem.

BLACKWELL: So the confederacy, they believed that white supremacy and the institution of slavery were positives. That was the point of the entire government.

O'TOOLE: Well, it's not the only point, but it is an important point.

BLACKWELL: It was the points that they said made it unique. Right.

O'TOOLE: You're referring to Alexander Hamilton Stevens, cornerstone speech, I think there, which was a speech he made.

BLACKWELL: Alexander Stevens, yes.

O'TOOLE: Yes. He was the Vice President of the Confederacy.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

O'TOOLE: And so that's what some people said. And yes, slavery was an important and significant factor in the rupture between the north and the South.

BLACKWELL: But it is --

O'TOOLE: But it's not what the memorial is intended to emphasize.

BLACKWELL: But if so, and again, this is about the lawsuit. But if the point is to highlight the positive elements, and I know that you have a concern about building and creating these outside of the political context of the moment of the confederacy, their goal was to perpetuate the fallacy of white supremacy and to protect the institution of slavery. A monument about the confederacy without that seems incomplete.

O'TOOLE: Well, again, we come back to the question about when you memorialize something, you're looking for accentuating the positive. You're not looking for accentuating negatives.

BLACKWELL: And this would be the Lost Cause Focus.

O'TOOLE: Well, the interesting thing about the Lost Cause Focus, that was actually the title of a book written by a pro-Confederate editor from the Richmond Examiner, and his book "The Lost Cause" came out like two years after the war.

[08:35:10]

And the intention of the book seems to be that we accept the loss of the war. We accept that this is a new order that we live under. And so when they talk about Lost Cause ideology, they're talking about something which was actually a pro-confederate statement by the EA Pollard, who is the editor of the Richmond Examiner.

BLACKWELL: And has now become synonymous with this kind of genteel gauze that is placed over antebellum South. Have you been engaged at all with the state, with the Stone Mountain Memorial Association about what you think this should look like, if not what they've described in the Warner Museum?

O'TOOLE: Actually, we were. A few years ago we prepared a video which is on the Georgia SCV website, GeorgiaSCV.com, which you can see, which we presented to the Stone Mountain Memorial Association suggesting what they could do to increase attendance, would have it as a historical park sort of thing like Jamestown, Williamsburg, things like that. And they advised no interest in that whatsoever.

And we've also -- we've had several meetings with the Stone Mountain Memorial Association people and they usually tell us we're here to listen, but they won't respond to anything. We also sent a letter to the Department of Administrative Services before filing the lawsuit saying that we had issues with this. Could we talk about this? We got a letter back, said, we've read your letter, we'll be back in touch with you. Got a response several years ago.

Then we sent a second letter saying we haven't heard from you. No response to that letter whatsoever. So for us, the only way to go is to file a lawsuit.

BLACKWELL: All right, Martin O'Toole, I find this to be interesting that the addition of the context of segregation and slavery and the elements of the confederacy just might break Georgia law. And we'll be following it. Thanks for coming to have the conversation.

O'TOOLE: Well, thank you for having us. Appreciate your opportunity to speak.

BLACKWELL: Still to come, Director Ryan Coogler is recording his record breaking movie "Sinners" achieved a new first, how the movie is reaching the black deaf community in the US.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:41:40]

BLACKWELL: All right. Now to the stories that hit my algorithm this week that you might not have seen on TV. A Salvadoran journalist held in federal detention issued a public pleasure plea for help. Mario Guevara is asking his native country's president for help to stop his deportation. He says that he's being persecuted for being a journalist.

Guevara fled El Salvador in 2004 after he was threatened by paramilitary groups. Last month, police arrested him outside of Atlanta while he was covering a protest. He's being held at an ICE facility despite a judge granting him bond. Salvadoran president Bukele has not responded to his plea.

Warner Brothers just made streaming history. You can now watch the "Sinners" movie with Black American Sign Language interpretation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Y'all ready to sweat till y' all stink? You keep dancing with the devil, one day he's going to follow you home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: We got us a problem. So Texas native and a member of the black deaf community herself, Nakia Smith is who you're watching deliver that interpretation. Now Black American Sign Language is a dialect of ASL with some unique differences. The signing space is usually closer to the forehead than the chest, and signers may use both hands for signs that might use only one for standard ASL.

Coming up, social media accounts are using AI to push derogatory content. Have you seen some of these videos? Why some have called this digital blackface.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:47:40]

BLACKWELL: Now, as much as artificial intelligence is supposed to help us into the future, it's also dragging along with its society's current problems. And now the Internet trolls are creating their own content, perpetuating derogatory stereotypes. Some have called the content a modern day minstrel show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You said you'd send a child support Friday. It's Tuesday, Marcus. $7 ain't even going to get me to Krispy Kreme. But this Altima still run better than your life.

Y'all mad? I'm loud, I'm loud. A and N employed don't hate because my man's still picking me up in this Altima. Keep watching from them curtains, Karen. I see you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Joining me now to discuss Andre Brock, an associate professor at Georgia Tech School of Literature, Media and Communication. He's also the author of "Distributed Blackness: African American Cyber Cultures." Thanks for coming back on the show.

So, we were talking during the break. I have seen my algorithm flooded with these. Am I just sensitive to them or is everybody seeing them?

ANDREW BROCK, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, GEORGIA TECH SCHOOL OF LITERATURE, MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION: So if you're on TikTok and you're seeing these videos, TikTok is built for data extraction, meaning the algorithm is tuned to get you to engage as much as possible. So if they show you this content, you're going to respond to this content that feeds their money engine. Right.

And it also happens that black folk tend to see content by and about black folk three times more than white folk. So you are already tuning the algorithm to show you things that you will respond to.

BLACKWELL: Is it clear who's making these?

BROCK: Ish.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

BROCK: It's a pretty expensive subscription is $250 a month for Google VO, which is the program that's doing a lot of this, the AI. And so, it's a lot more curiosity from tech folk. But there are also some people have been doing AI influencers for years now.

BLACKWELL: And so are these, are there creators who are feeding prompts into AI? You can probably tell by my questions how far into this I am, that are feeding prompts into AI or is this now regenerating on its own?

BROCK: That's a combination. Right. One, the prompts can be really sophisticated, as much as a paragraph long. But also this particular version of Google's engine can generate audio on its own. Right. So if you tell it, if you give it a situation, it will make up the audio to go along with it. And some of this is the training data that we have supplied to the AI as well.

[08:50:00]

BLACKWELL: Let me give you another example here of a fictional black news network and play what they show.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome back to the Black News Network. Tonight's story, a father of two returned home from the grocery store today to discover another man at his baby mama crib. Here's Tyrone with more.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yo, what's up, Marcus? I'm here outside the crib where that baby mama stay. And apparently that ain't her car.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Up next on CNN, the Semiannual YN Festival is only a few days away and we asked the block if they ready to turn up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And y' all be wondering what they doing over there. Well, we found out and we going to tell you about it after the break.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLACKWELL: And somebody is trying to make a point here, try to make it. This is not just coincidental that these things are being made, right?

BROCK: Not at all. But never underestimate the desire of black entrepreneurs to build things which they think will speak to the community and make them money. So there are black folk who are doing this as well. But largely, when you're seeing stuff like this, the chances are really good at somebody who's not black.

BLACKWELL: And so you gave an example of the image of Angel Reese that was made into a gorilla. It can this or is it being regulated at all? I mean, I'd imagine in some ways it couldn't live up to First Amendment challenges of what people make.

BROCK: No, it's -- one, it's not being regulated. And apparently according to journalists, this Google engine is the least regulated out of all the image generators. It has very soft guardrails. It will produce child sexual abuse adjacent material. It will produce racist material. And so the things that you're seeing are things that Google has not yet taken the time and energy to moderate.

BLACKWELL: And so as we kind of back out from the technical element of it and you focus on black cyber cultures, what do you see is the, the import of this? What is the consequence of what we're seeing?

BROCK: So black folk, particularly black women who are trying to be influencers and content creators, are already the lowest compensated out of all demographic categories. What this further abstracts the black body in a way that now they don't even have to put black bodies on the screen or behind the camera in order to do this.

And there's a similar trend in video games where they use non-black voice actors to voice black characters. Right. And so this is just an extension of that, where the black body is no longer necessary for exploitation.

BLACKWELL: Andre Brock, thank you so much for coming in.

BROCK: You're quite welcome.

BLACKWELL: All right. Still to come, a life changing adventure for a group of indigenous kayakers. Why their journey down the Klamath River would have been impossible just a few years ago.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:56:57]

BLACKWELL: A 19-year-old pilot who's trying to fly to all seven continents solo hit a snag in his most recent continent. Ethan Guo. He's been flying around the world to raise money for cancer research, but he's been detained by Chilean authorities in Antarctica.

Chilean authorities say that he submitted a fake flight plan to take off from Chile toward Antarctica, and Guo's attorney says that he was conducting an exploratory flight when he experienced some complications and now he's stuck in Antarctica and will be there until authorities give him permission to return to Chile.

A group of indigenous kayakers have completed a journey that was impossible for the past century paddling the entire Klamath River. You see between 1918 and 1966, a series of dams that were built on the river, which cut off tribes from this cultural and commercial resource.

That is, until last year, when four of the six dams on the river were taken down in the world's largest dam removal effort. An organization called Paddle Tribal Waters led dozens of 13 to 20-year olds down the Klamath that traveled 300 miles from southern Oregon to the northern California coast. And I spoke to two of the young kayakers and one of the organizers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIELLE FRANK, ORGANIZER, PADDLE TRIBAL WATERS: The dams on the Klamath River have had a really negative impact on our indigenous communities, specifically here in the basin. Our rivers are our life. Not only are they our cultural lifeline, they're our lifeline to health, to sustainable food sources and traditional food sources, and they're our lifeline to each other. There are many tribes within the basin and we've always had somewhat of a connection.

COLEY KAKOIS MILLER, PARTICIPANT, KLAMATH FIRST DESCENT: It is like tough mentally and physically, I say, just a little bit, but I think if you can push yourself and also you have all your friends in this whole paddle tribal community just to help you out and be there for you when you need it.

JULIAN TOHNIKYAW ROGERS, PARTICIPANT, KLAMATH FIRST DESCENT: During this first descent, I'm learning a lot more about other people in the basin. So I got to meet a lot of people and learn the way that they do things up at the headwaters of the Klamath.

So that was super cool to see for me. And also, like, being everybody here is from, like, different tribes in the basin, so I get to learn a lot from them. I get to see, like, the way they do their culture.

MILLER: What I hope people can take back from what we're doing is definitely just like, how big indigenous youth voices can be, like, for the sustain. I think our voices are really loud and we're like, proud.

FRANK: Something that I really hope people can learn from our story and us sharing with the world is that our rivers and our lifestyles are not just for indigenous people. We are the ones who -- we do maintain this very sacred relationship with nature and outdoors. But in reality, people in nature are not different. And I think that's something that we all as humans have to recognize.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Paddle Tribal Waters and Riota Rivers, I see you. [09:00:00]

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