Milagros Phillips, AKA the race healer, is a keynote speaker, TED Talk presenter, award-winning author with five titles, certified coach, and recipient of the 2021 New Thought Walden Award for Interfaith/Intercultural Understanding. Forbes has named her one of Today’s Innovative Leaders. Her latest book, “CRACKING THE HEALER'S CODE – A Prescription for Healing Racism & Finding Wholeness,” is a triple award winner. Milagros is the Creator of the monthly Race Literacy Lunch & Learn.
Our country lives at a time of great peril and great promise. Multiple crises challenge both the U.S. and the world. The survival of our country, our species and our planet are at stake.
The problem is that the people with the solutions often don’t have the power to implement them; and the people with the power are often unaware that solutions exist.
However, solutions do exist. Today, we offer you the first in a series of essays on critical issues of our time as an introduction to the Solutions Summit 2023 broadcast from the U.S. Capitol where solutions will be brought to the attention of decision makers at every level. This live Zoom broadcast runs from November 6th - 16th, and is free and open to those who register. Please register now here: https://solutionssummit2023.com/
Explore with us the first of a series of essays on key subjects to be explored at The Solutions Summit.
Excerpted from “CRACKING THE HEALER’S CODE”
“Being anti-racist is much needed in today’s climate. But to be anti-anything is exhausting. At some point, even the best anti-racist will need to seek healing.” —Milagros Phillips
Anti-racism work gives an understanding of the fundamental structure of our racist systems. It wakes people up to the realities of racism and its impact on Black people, Indigenous people, and People of Color, also known as “BIPOC.” Anti-racism work is much needed, but it often leaves participants stuck in guilt, shame, and anger. This prevents them from moving forward and doing the vital work needed to change our society. Remember racism is a problem for People of Color; it is not the problem of People of Color. To solve racism, the whole community needs to be involved. We can’t afford to leave anyone behind.
Anti-racism is about what is happening in our outer world. Healing racism is about staying aware of what is happening in the outer world and how it affects our inner world. Healing requires we pay attention to mind, body, spirit, and emotions and learn to manage our actions, reactions, and interactions. In healing, we do all of this while staying connected to what’s happening in the world around us. Healing racism is about remaining whole in spite of it.
Healing racism is the missing link to our current discourse on race. It uses fundamental history, science, and storytelling to weave a tapestry that connects the past to the present. Healing racism takes people through the stages of healing, which leads to awareness, connection, and action.
Healing racism gives information that leads to transformation. It creates safety for all and allows for tears and emotions, which must be expressed for healing to occur. Healing is about treating the whole being—mind, body, spirit, and emotions.
You will definitely want to be against racism to start healing by doing things like speaking out against it and believing People of Color when they tell you something is wrong. However, healing requires a different set of skills than those we have been operating under and a new, steady diet of fresh and creative ideas. Healing requires us to hold space for emotions such as anger, frustration, and pain. It requires patience. People didn’t get this way overnight, so healing will take time. It means knowing people are going to get it wrong, mistakes will be made, and, at times, we may regress. In healing racism, we know we all have triggers, not knowing what may trigger a person.
Healing work means dealing with messy emotions, and it prompts individuals to delve into those emotions rather than suppress them. It welcomes tears; it asks where in your body you are feeling those tears and what memories and family information those tears bring up for you. It requires a keen awareness of self and others and compassion for both. It requires an understanding of history to connect the past with the present. Healing is understanding how historical traumas impact us across generations.
Leaving behind the racially conditioned self requires humility, self-responsibility, and a commitment to change. Healing invites us to go through the shadow and own our share of it. Rather than see the problem as out-there, it leads us to see how we unconsciously collude with the problem. Healing requires a willingness to acknowledge the pain and do something about it. Healing involves seeing the emotional distress as a warning something needs to be done or the problem will continue and even worsen. Healing is about understanding the conditions that have led to our racial conditioning and the events, circumstances, and methods used to get us to adhere to that conditioning.
Healing gives us a foundation for our actions, reactions, and interactions. It lets us take responsibility for making the changes needed to leave behind the racialized self and embrace the oneness of the human family. It allows us to see how our unwillingness to face our shadow and its subsequent silence affects the world around us. Healing gives us techniques to calm the spirit and stay sane in a toxic environment.
Healing is worth the discomfort! On the other side of healing is our personal and collective liberation. Because healing racism is about healing our relationship to ourselves and others, those who embark on the journey find they heal other areas of their lives as well.
Questions to consider:
• Have you attended anti-racism seminars?
• Have you participated in healing racism work?
• How did it make you feel?
• Do you see a need for healing?
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.