We recently connected with Michelle Reyes and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Michelle, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.
I teach Christian leaders how to have gracious conversations on race in order to achieve impactful racial change. When it comes to race-related issues, we don’t know how to communicate well. Everyone wants to be an educator, but people rarely want to be a conversationalist. We talk at each other instead of with each other, and then we wonder why we can’t seem to bridge the divides across cultures and race. What we need is a healthier path forward, a way of speaking and listening and connecting with each other that is built on mutual respect and understanding. What I teach my students in my online program, Seasoned with Grace, is the conversational skills to have a gracious conversation on race with anyone and anywhere. If you want to work toward meaningful racial change with someone, you need to do the hard, slow work of building a relationship, being curious, asking better questions, learning the other person’s needs and wishes, and finding a path forward together.
Michelle, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am Michelle Ami Reyes, the creator of Seasoned with Grace. I’m a race and culture coach as well as an activist and the award-winning author of the book, Becoming All Things: How Small Changes Lead to Lasting Connections Across Cultures.
As a race and culture coach, I bring to the table:
8+ years of academic training in transnational racial discourse, cultural identity development, and multicultural frameworks
15+ years as a practitioners in interracial, cross-cultural vocational ministry contexts
Personal life experience as a bicultural 2nd generation Indian American woman
I am passionate about helping people of different cultures find their way to each other and to work collaboratively toward a healthier, more holistic future. Whether through my weekly newsletter, my YouTube channel, or in my online program, my goal is to equip leaders to engage race with grace.
I have perfected a method to have more IMPACTFUL conversations on race – the Grace Framework – and I’ve been teaching and training hundreds of folks (including pastors, church staff, elders, parachurch directors and teams, student groups, missionaries, mom groups & more) since 2017. I have led cultural competency training for churches, parachurch organizations, and businesses around the country, and have guest taught on biblical models of racial justice and anti-racism at Harvard, Princeton, Gordon-Conwell, and Moody BIble Institute. I’ve also been interviewed by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, NBC News.com, and Good Morning America.
The GRACE framework is what I teach inside my program, Seasoned with Grace. When you have the right strategies and conversation skills to have gracious, productive conversations on race… the sky’s the limit! If you can talk to anyone and connect with them on any race-related subject, you can make a positive impact anywhere and at any time.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Perhaps you’re wondering: Why do I care so much about equipping Christian leaders to have impactful conversations on race?
The short answer is that I wish someone had guided me in my early years working as a practitioner in cross-cultural ministry contexts.
Once upon a time, my husband and I lived near downtown Chicago.
We lived adjacent to both a fairly large Black community and a predominantly white community, and I remember how passionate I was about working toward positive racial change in the inner city.
I was voraciously reading books on racial discourse, multiculturalism, and cultural identity development, I was listening to all the podcasts and watching YouTube videos, and doing ALL THE THINGS.
But there was a problem…
I’d try to tell someone at church about what I was learning, but the conversation wouldn’t go anywhere.
I’d try to apply the knowledge I was learning from books into my vocational context, but the people I was serving didn’t seem to care what I was doing, let alone think it was effective.
I’d try to organize dinner gatherings or book clubs to encourage people to care about very real, very imminent racial problems. But things never seemed to work out the way I wanted them to.
I felt like I was metaphorically banging my head against the wall.
Why weren’t people listening to me? Why couldn’t I get anyone to care about issues of race? Why am I unable to make the difference I so desperately want to make?
What I eventually learned — and what I now teach in my program and with my students — is that we have to flip the script: we need to connect with folks before we ever seek to correct. We need to see ourselves as conversationalists, not educators. Before plowing in with all of our knowledge and statistics and data, we need to get to know our conversation partner, their hopes and dreams and even fears, and see where we can find common ground. We need to be able to ask better questions, and listen with our whole bodies, and respond in ways that show we truly care.
Once I stopped educating people and began seeking to connect and collaborate, i.e. to see other people as teachers with valuable information to share and from whom I could mutually learn from, my whole approach to conversations on race changed…for the better.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
I’m 2nd generation Indian American, and I used to think my voice wasn’t valuable in race conversations because I wasn’t Black.
The more I talked to folks, the more I began to hear similar sentiments. People would tell me, “I can’t lead in race conversations, because I’m (white, Black, Asian, Latino, Mixed…fill in the blank).”
There are a lot of folk out there saying who is allowed or not allowed to lead conversations on race, but here’s what I’ve learned over the years: every single qualifier for who is allowed to speak up on race is a myth.
There is absolutely no truth in the idea that only Black voices should lead conversations on race, or that white voices can’t have a say, or that Mixed or Latino or Asian voices should take a back seat.
Everyone – Black, Brown, and white – needs to have the equal ability to speak, lead, and get involved in race conversations.
Here’s Why: Context matters.
We all best contextualize to our own contexts.
There are people in YOUR context that need to hear YOUR voice.
Want to lead conversations on race? Start with your context…
…and that may or may not be the same as your ethnic roots.
Think about where you grew up, what community you spent your childhood in, what community you married into, or perhaps served in.
Whatever community you identify with culturally, speak up there.
Your people need you.
In addition, what I’ve learned is that, if we want everyone addressing race problems, then everyone deserves an equal voice in working toward solutions. Equality of responsibility = equality of voice.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://michelleamireyes.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michelleamireyes/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michelleamireyes/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-reyes/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz8W8q0hr99RJlHw19yZ7WQ
- Other: Seasoned with Grace Online Program: https://michelleamireyes.com/grace