What did you promise yourself you would do different in 2017? For most, 2017 is the year you are going to work out, eat healthy, work on yourself or even participate in a social cause dear to your heart. Let start the conversation about fitness, work outs and personal trainers with Jai Davis, Professional Athlete, Firefighter, Paramedic, Personal Trainer, and Child Advocate. Joining CAN WE TALK FOR REAL on Wednesday, January 25, 2017 will be Jai Davis Professional Athlete, Firefighter, Paramedic, Personal Trainer, and Child Advocate. Join us as Jai talks about achieving a healthier lifestyle with nutritional planning, staying fit, and maintaining a healthy body image and how fitness empowers woman. Jai will also talk about her commitment to juvenile diabetes through the Jai Fit Academy.  The Jai Fit Academy works hard to educate the youth in achieving a healthier lifestyle to include: nutritional planning, staying fit, and maintaining a healthy body image. Join us this Wednesday, January 25, 2017 at 8:30PM EST/7:30PM CST as CAN WE TALK FOR REAL has a candid conversation with Jai Davis, personal trainer, ex- boxer, and advocate about training and empowering your body.  

CAN WE TALK FOR REAL – your award winning Blogtalkradio show.

SCHOOL HAS NOW OFFICIALLY OPENED FOR MILLIONS OF CHILDREN. Nearly nine out of 10 LGBT students (86.2 percent) experience harassment at school because of their sexual orientation, and 60.8 percent feel unsafe, according to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) 2007 National School Climate Survey. The 2015 National School Climate Survey will come out in fall of 2016 as noted on the GLSEN website. These numbers are alarming but what is on the horizon is more alarming in a good way. California and Georgia have open schools that are geared toward the LGBTQ student offering LGBTQ students a safe, supportive environment -- one they can choose or decline -- can save lives and be an important ingredient in an overall recipe for positive change for all youth, including and especially LGBTQ youth and their allies.” More importantly is that in October 2016, the LGBTQ Community Initiative at Teach for America will celebrate two years. The Initiative will be a part of the Summit where it is open to LGBTQ and allied corps members, alumni, staff, partners, and students. They are sponsored by Teach for America’s LGBTQ Community Initiative and participating regions. LGBTQ Summits will drive the work of engaging teachers and leaders in partnership with regional and national organizations that focus on supporting LGBTQ students and educators. Joining Can We Talk for REAL will be Tim’m West, Senior Managing Director, LGBTQ Community Initiative, Strategic Initiatives & Partnerships of Teach America. Tim’m will lead the conversation about LGBTQ students in schools and what they go through once they enter the buildings every day.

We previously had couples from the Chicago area who agreed to join us and juts talk raw about marriage and their feelings about issues that affect us all no matter who you marry. Tonight on Can WE Talk for REAL we are going to continue that conversation. Joining CAN WE TALK FOR REAL tonight, August17, 2016 is Lisa (Verse) Ware has been married to Romesa Ware since June 10, 2016. Lisa is Sup. Historian,, President of Chicago's Lambda Colony, Alpha Psi Kappa Fraternity, Incorporated, April 2, 2011 to present. Also joining us will be SB Moss, who had been married since June 17, 2008. Sb is a Patient Care Technician (PCT) at DaVita.  She also studied Health Care at South Suburban College. Lastly we have a couple that also are married and are business partners. Interesting combination we have the owners of TnPcleaningprofessionals Are Us joining us tonight. Tonight’s conversation is going to be open and if you are thinking about getting married listen in and ask those questions that will help you. Also, if you got married within the past 10 years or more and you have good advice for our couples to be or newlyweds call in and share the Happiness.

Did marriage change you?  If you have to do it again what would you change? What is your secret.

School starts soon and for many it will be a new experience with a group of classmates they have never met and they know nothing about. For those returning to school there is the in crowd, the jocks, the brainy students and the TARGETS, and not just the new kids in schools but “friends”, “neighbors” or just the “outsiders”.  Middle school and High school are supposed to be the best years of your life. Its where you meet those lifelong friends, be popular, play sports, become a good debater, take up politics, find puppy love, go to Prom and graduate- beginning life.  Hundreds of students will begin school and many of those who accept and begin living their truth as LGBTQ, or is diagnosed with bi-polar or a mental disease will become those TARGETS and will commit Suicide. ALERT: There is a NEW BULLY in town and it is called Social Media better known as Face Book. It becomes the hidden fist that strikes you, the vicious words (gay, trans, bi-polar) that degrades you, the gun that shoots you and the knife that stabs you in the heart.  As school, starts back parents need to look, listen and be proactive in conversations with your children. Young people if you stay silent and allow someone else to be bullied you can also carry the label of bully, because you are not part of the solution.

It’s been a little past the year mark since the landmark Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges, decided the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples. The actual number of couples that have wed since the decision is unknown.  Joining CAN WE TALK FOR REAL on Wednesday, August 3, 2016 is Imani Baskin. President and CEO of Women Healing Women, Inc. Imani is also Poetess, Empowerment Coach, Artist, Motivator, Feminist, Thought Liberator, Unicorn and Author. This spring she added a new title to her arsenal that of bride/wife.Imani is a dynamic speaker, who captivates her audience with passion, humor and a unique ability to personalize her message to fit anyone listening to her words. As a professional counselor and life coach, Imani inspires her clients to turn painful experiences into purpose-driven missions. She is affectionately known as the Barrier Breaker & Change Maker! Is a wedding in your plans? Want to make a surprise proposal or announce to friends/family your wedding plans? Then tune in to hear what this powerhouse has to say about the experience, get some tips and learn how it has changed her life. If you were recently married join us as we talk.

Tonight's show

Do you remember what you thought, how you felt or what you were doing when you heard that 49 people who were out enjoying the evening had been shot and killed in an Orlando Nightclub? Now the same question, when it was announced the club was a gay club? Did this horrible event impact you in such a way that you needed to talk to a friend, family, vent on FaceBook, or just join in one of the vigils for the victims no matter what city, town or state you were in? The most important question is going to be now, “How did this change your life”? Believe me it has, whether you want to believe it did or not. We are all changed even if you are not gay. Joining Can We Talk for REAL cohosts Teresa (TerryBoi) Jackson and Michelle E. Brown on Wednesday June 22, 2016 is Claudia Mosier, Psy.D. a licensed clinical psychologist in Chicago. She had been the Director of Mental Health and Youth Services for the Center on Halsted. Once the LGBTQ community woke to the news of the Orlando shooting, Mosier opened her office to the members of the LGBTQ community and anyone who needed to come and join in conversation. CAN WE TALK FOR REAL airs at 8:30PM EST/7:30PM CST. Call (347)215-8985 and press “1” to listen and be a part of the conversation

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar. Every day during this month, Muslims around the world spend the daylight hours in a complete fast. In 2016 Ramadan begins in the evening of Sunday, June 5th and ends in the evening of Tuesday, July 5th.

Muslims currently make up approximately 0.9% of the U.S. adult population. If children are included, the Muslim population in the United States totals 2.75 million Muslims in the country. 

Although the exact number of LGBTQ Muslims in the United States or globally is not known, openly gay Imams are emerging to help those struggling to live openly and authentically in harmony with their faith.

Joining CAN WE TALK FOR REAL cohosts Teresa (TerryBoi) Jackson and Michelle E. Brown on Wednesday June 8, 2016 is IMAM DAAYIEE ABDULLAH one of the five Imams worldwide who are openly gay.

IMAM DAAYIEE ABDULLAH lectures nationally and internationally on progressive Muslim concepts, intra-faith and interfaith networking, and the development of inclusive and progressive revisions of Islamic theological thought and Islamic law. He actively promotes understanding and awareness of issues of racial, gender and sexual equality as understood in the UN Declaration of Human Rights within and beyond Muslim communities.

Each year on Memorial Day we remember members of our community – family, friends, neighbors even strangers – who died while serving in the country’s armed forces. We visit their graves, hold memorials, march in parades and thank them for their service but what about the remaining 364 days of the year.After a successful career as an entrepreneur in Michigan, Tiera Craig moved to New York and joined the US Department of Veterans Affairs in New York. Besides providing management analysis, she provides a welcoming “Out and Proud” face for LGBTQ veterans visiting the facility.Tiera has volunteered at various non-profit organizations across the country. As a member of Kappa Xi Omega Sorority, Inc., she is surrounded by successful professional women, some of whom are active military and veterans themselves.Tiera recently attended the 5th Annual OutServe-SLDN LGBT Military Leadership Conference in Washington DC. OutServe-SLDN brings together actively serving and retired service members, advocates and experts to discuss issues, concerns, and future planning for the LGBT military community. Tiera will share her observations from the OutServe-SLDN Conference. She will also talk about her experiences as a membership in Kappa Xi Omega and how it drives her commitment to serve with the Rainbow Veterans Project.

Founded by Tiera Craig, The Rainbow Veterans Project aims to provide resource, advocacy, and training to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Veterans.

May is Lupus Awareness Month! Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints and/or organs inside the body). African-Americans are three times more likely than Caucasians to develop lupus and with greater severity.  Black females disproportionately are burdened by lupus. Joining CAN WE TALK FOR REAL ,May 25, 2016 is Sharon L. Harris, founder and president of Lupus Detroit. Ms. Harris will share her journey from diagnosis to Lupus Warrior raising awareness about the disease and advocating for others stricken with Lupus so they could also not just survive but thrive.A month after graduating from Florida A & M University, she was diagnosed with discoid and systemic lupus. Soon after the diagnosis, she had a “what if tomorrow is never promised” moment. Shortly after the lupus went into remission, she passed two rigorous interviews and six weeks of training and became a flight attendant for Mesaba Airlines. Her reasoning was if lupus was going to attack her, it would have to find her on the beaches of Aruba or high above the Eiffel tower. In late 2008 threatened her health and well-being. Sharon experienced a lupus flare so great that her doctor told her there was nothing left that he could do. He then patted her on her back and told her “good luck”. Within a year, Sharon raised more than one million dollars in pledges, in-kind donations and sponsorships for the organization. In 2009, her Lupus Walk team raised almost $5,000 for lupus research. This led her to be a sought after lupus advocate, participating as a guest on radio and television. She has travelled to Washington D.C to lobby Congress and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on behalf of those with lupus. The genetics of lupus in minority populations is starting to get the attention it deserves in part due to the efforts of Warriors like Sharon L. Harris.