March 1, 2022 • 42 mins
Milagros Phillips sits down with Tony and Toni and shares some mind-blowing revelations through her studies about indoctrination and how we can truly heal from the trauma of racism. Milagros Phillips is a keynote speaker, TEDx presenter, four times author, and certified coach.
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Milagros Phillips (00:00):
As children, we begin to lose a lot of the
knowledge and awareness that wecome in with, a lot of our power
gets siphoned away from us and,and by the time we are adults,
we're just doing the best wecan. And we're often not always
but often in survival, whichdoesn't lead to thriving.
Tony (00:22):
Welcome to season six of Black Family Table Talk. We are
your host, Toni and Tony. Listenin weekly as we share unique
stories that inspire, build andgive voice to strengthen black
families.
Toni Henson (00:36):
This season is sponsored by Franz body care.
These are handmade products madefrom organic ingredients. I
personally recommend you tryfree me deodorant, it really
works. And it's free of aluminumtaupe perfumes and other
harmful, pore cloggingsubstances. You can shop these
and other black businesses onour website at
(00:59):
BlackFamilyTableTalk.com.
Welcome to Black Family TableTalk today we have Milagros
Phillips. Tell us your story.
What made you want to come andshare your gifts and talents
with Black Family Table Talk
Milagros Phillips (01:14):
Well, I have been doing healing racism work
for over 30 years. I hate to saybut like, Oh, it's a long time.
And in one of the things thathas happened to us as black
people, and I'm talking aboutthe diaspora collectively around
the world is obviously a lot ofour history has been raised, has
(01:40):
not certainly doesn't get taughtin the schools. In a lot of the
stories that are told about usare not necessarily told by us.
And so one of the things thathappens with that is that I
mean, it's a form of propaganda,when you don't allow people to
tell their own stories, becauseyou have an agenda. You want it
(02:01):
told from your side, right. SoI've been doing this work, as I
said, for a long time. And oneof the things that I realized is
that we just don't have enoughinformation to make the
transformation from the wound tothe healing. And so I recently
wrote a book called Cracking theHealers Code of perspective for
healing racism, and findingwholeness, because a lot of what
(02:24):
happens with how we are taughtabout race and racism is that
it's taught in such a way thatas children, we begin to lose a
lot of the knowledge andawareness that we come in with a
lot of our power gets siphonedaway from us and, and by the
(02:45):
time we were adults, we're justdoing the best we can. And we're
often not always, but often insurvival, which doesn't lead to
thriving, it just keeps us in acycle of survival.
So I wrote this book, becauseone of the main things that I
realized is that we're missing alot of the history. We're not,
(03:07):
like I said, we will learn it inschool, nobody teaches us that
history. A lot of what is calledBlack history in this country,
is actually the history of whitepeople perpetrating violence
upon black and brown people. Andas I tell everybody that comes
regardless of the color of theirskin, when they come to my two
(03:28):
day seminar, 20 of the work thatI do, is, racism is a problem
for people of color. It is not aproblem of people of color, and
racism is not our problem, wecannot solve that. What we have
to do for our own healing, is tobecome aware of our own
Stockholm Syndrome, which is howwe internalize the behaviors of
(03:53):
the people who kidnapped us.
Then we start acting like themand we're not even conscious,
especially generation aftergeneration, that we're doing it.
I also want people to know andunderstand that if we're going
to heal, we need our history,right? Because when you go to
the doctor because something'shurting you, the first thing
they ask you for is yourhistory. Well, second thing,
(04:14):
they want to know if you can paythem so they want the insurance
card. They need your historybecause they need to understand
what's happened in your lineage,so that they can understand,
what is happening to you now andcreate a process of healing that
will make you better in thefuture, right? Whether it's
(04:35):
tomorrow or next week orwhatever. So the historical
pieces are important.
Understanding trauma isimportant. And then having
patience and compassion withourselves because we don't know
what we don't know simply again,because we've not been taught a
lot of the history. I've wantedto come and speak to our people
(05:00):
about what is it we need to healfrom, over 500 years of
internalized racialconditioning? And really look at
what's missing in thisconversation?
Tony (05:16):
This is a topic Toni and I often discuss. I have a quick
look at your LinkedIn profileand you mentioned race literacy.
Is that a term you coined?
What's the background on thatterminology and can you define
it?
Milagros Phillips (05:39):
For sure, yeah. So in 2016, I wrote a book
called 11 Reasons To Become RaceLiterate. I was looking for a
definition for race literacy,because I just knew there has to
be one and I couldn't find. Butthe closest I came was, there
was a woman who was doingresearch in the UK and she used
(05:59):
the phrase, race literacy, toexplain what parents- black and
brown parents have to tell theirchildren about surviving in this
racialized world. My definitionof race literacy is very, it's a
bit different from that. So mydefinition of race literacy is
the knowledge and awareness ofthe history of race, how one is
(06:22):
acculturated into a racial castesystem. The laws and systems in
the nation state that supportthe human divide, and the impact
of all of the above on ourindividual lives, and our
collective experience. So that'smy definition of race literacy.
Toni Henson (06:44):
Now, what's your background and training?
Milagros Phillips (06:47):
I'm an artist.
Toni X (06:50):
Everything comes from the arts.
Milagros Phillips (06:53):
I am an artist. I went to music and art
High School in New York, I wentto FIT Fashion Institute of
Technology got a degree infashion design. I later got a
degree in business but really,I'm an artist. I'm an artist at
heart, I studied music as well.
So music and art and beyond, Istarted painting and the fine
(07:13):
arts. But I also studied musicbecause when I was a little kid,
I wanted to be an opera singer.
And I was probably the only kidin the country, who by the time
I was 11 years old, could singthe entire score to Ti Dia
Memoire in Italian. I absolutelyloved opera. That was my big
(07:41):
thing in life. I wanted to be anopera singer. And I had an
interesting encounter, a meet toencounter with my manager in New
York. As soon as I turned 18 andthey shut my voice down, I
stopped singing for about 26years. Eventually, I started
singing again, but it was doingsound therapy. And I began to
(08:02):
teach sound therapy, and Istopped teaching it 2008 or
something like that. But now I'mfeeling very called back to
that, in fact, I have anappointment to go into a studio
and do some recording in acouple of weeks. I'm an artist
through and through.
Toni Henson (08:19):
That's not unusual, though. I'm the I'm the producer
of the Atlanta Black TheatreFestival. I can tell you that
art is the source. It's our giftfrom God to heal, we use art to
heal. And it's such a powerfultool. And I believe it is truly
a part of our traditionalmedicine. If you go to any
(08:43):
country in Africa, you'll seepeople are happy and they're
thriving, and they're laughingand they're dancing, and they're
singing, and that's themchanneling that healing. And
it's a huge part of being humanso I can definitely make that
connection.
Tony (09:03):
So one of the things we're doing with the Atlanta Black
Theatre Festival, this is our10th year anniversary. This is
not a plug for the festival, weare taking a group of artists
and artists enthusiasts back toGhana. And one of our missions
is to close that gap betweenAfricans in the diaspora. You
(09:29):
talked about earlier, no one Ihistory. And I just want to ask
you, we were taken, sold intoand trade it for and to
enslaved, but we were denied ourculture, our history, our
language. I mean, we lost somuch and your training, what
(09:56):
does it encompassn when withregard to learning our history
and learning who we are, what'syour starting point?
Milagros Phillips (10:05):
Well, I actually start in Europe in the
1400s. I mean, we can start inthe 1300s. I started in Europe
in the 1400s. Because there werethings that are happening there
that impacted the world andstill continue to impact the
world today. And we never talkabout it. For instance, the the
colonization of Africa,particularly the west coast of
(10:29):
Africa, was something that wasinstitutionalized by the
Vatican, in the 1400s. It wasearly to mid 1400s. The pope
created something called a papalbulll. By the way, it's called
(10:52):
papal bull because there's alittle ball that's used at the
bottom that was held with a silkstring, when they seal it, and
stamp it with the the papalseal. Wax the papal seal once
they write what they write onparchment. So they had the
papacy and monarchy were alwaysat odds with each other, always.
(11:15):
So they were trying to find waysto be able to work together. And
this was one of the ways thatthey found. And so what the
papacy did, they createdsomething called the doctrine of
discovery. And that Doctrine ofDiscovery basically said, it
gave permission to the prince ofPortugal, who was known as Henry
the Navigator, which by the way,he never sailed, never, you.
(11:38):
That was his name given becausehe supported so many of these
groups to go out and sail andconquer. The actual papal bull
says to conquer, vanquish,subdue, basically take hold of
the land, the waterways, and thepeople and their possessions and
(12:02):
to turn the people intoperpetual slaves. That
particular piece of Vatican,it's called Vatican legislature,
was then revised several times.
And the last time they revisedit, for this particular thing
for this, the conqueringcolonization was in 1493.
(12:28):
What happened in 1493, that'swhen Columbus went back to Spain
after having visited Cascadia.
And after it was so many of theDinos died, and he took some
dinos back with him to provethat he had made it to India,
because remember that wasoriginally where he wanted to
go. So he thought he actuallyhad made it to India, because
there were spices, there wasplenty of food there. When he
(12:48):
went back, he took food, goldsilver, in some dinos back with
him to prove that he found thisland with all this wealth. Well,
it wasn't very long before thedoctrine of discovery was then
enlarged, to include the French,the Spanish, the Dutch,
(13:11):
everybody and anybody, becausethey just figured out that, oh,
there's gold in their countries,and silver, and diamonds. All of
the things that they weresiphoning the wealth out of
Africa And now they weresiphoning the wealth of all
these other smaller islands andlarger countries. And so that is
what made for the MiddlePassage. And a lot of our people
(13:33):
don't know that. And the thingis that, you could say, well,
that was a long time ago, what'sit got to do with us now?
Plenty. The Doctrine ofDiscovery has been used in over
5000 cases, to resolve over 5000cases, a lot of them are land
cases with natives. The lasttime that the United States of
(13:53):
America, the Supreme Court, usedthe Doctrine of Discovery was in
2005, when Justice Ginsburg usedit to win a case against the
United Nation in New York, itwas Cheryl base versus Oneida.
The Land Act, all of thesethings go back to the Doctrine
(14:14):
of Discovery. And basically, thereason that Justice Ginsburg
could use that is because thenatives, the United had bought
some land from Cheryl, which isa town in New York. And of
course because of some of thetreaties that we actually kept,
(14:34):
we broke over 200 treaties withthe natives, but one of the
trees that we kept was that theydon't have to pay taxes on their
land. So they buy this land, andwithin a certain period of time,
they get this big tax bill andthey're like, Oh, no, you made a
mistake, we're not supposed tobe paying taxes on our land. And
they said, Oh, yes, you are,because that land is now
(14:56):
sovereign land. And here's whysovereign land in the Doctrine
of Discovery, and basically whatit says is, if any European
walks on, steps on, steals, buysor anyway has anything to do
with the land, the waterway whatpeople always forget, and the
(15:19):
people, that they forever, thatland, let's just keep it with
the land right now, that landbecomes sovereign land, which
means that it could never againbe considered native land. And
so therefore, even though theybuy it, and they pay it, and it
belongs to them, they still haveto pay taxes, because it is no
(15:42):
longer can revert to nativeland. It has to remain sovereign
land, anywhere that they walkedor stepped or stole or squatted
or anything, anywhere in theworld, anywhere in the world,
that was not consideredCatholic. Now, this is really
important, because a lot ofpeople go, Oh, Christian, no, it
(16:03):
wasn't Christian, becausethere's a broader term. This,
the Doctrine of Discovery isvery specific. It the doctrine
of discovery was for any nation,or groups of people who were not
Catholic, because they wereconsidered savages. And so
therefore, the Doctrine ofDiscovery, still, today, it's an
(16:23):
international law, by the way,in any country that was ever
colonized is still under,Australia used it in 2010, or
something like that. Canada usedit in 2015. They use it all the
time.
So any country that was wascolonized is still under this
(16:45):
international law. And sotherefore, any lawyer at any
given point in time can use itbecause like, wow, they can take
up the book and go, it's in thebook, which is basically what
Justice Ginsburg did. But sowhat it means is that the lands,
waterways and the people who areunder perpetual slavery,
(17:12):
according to the Doctrine ofDiscovery, are subject to
whatever the laws of thedoctrine are. And if we don't
know that, we can't heal, wecan't transform. We can't join
the natives in asking theVatican to resend that law as
(17:32):
they can. And as long as the lawhas not been rescinded, it can
be used at any given moment intime against anyone. Remember
that it is the land, thewaterways, the possession is
ended up people.
Tony (17:47):
That's heavy.
Toni Henson (17:51):
How did you go from the Doctrine of Discovery to
healing because I'm looking atthe reviews from your book, and
they are phenomenal. And I'mgoing to read a couple of them,
because I'm just blown away bythe impact that you've been able
to have on people. And this onein particular hit me. It says,
"This is an easy read andunderstood, but brings forth the
(18:14):
hard truth of the hot buttonissue of racism to the fore of
how we can process it, and whatdoes it do to the perpetrator
and the victim alike. You'vereally find out that there
really is no divide between thetwo in the long run, because
(18:34):
both become a victim of thisdark illusion of separation."
That's a profound response toyour book. And there's so many
of them here, cracking thehealers code, a prescription for
healing racism. Tell us what,how did you get the connection
to the two?
Milagros Phillips (18:53):
Well, I always laugh that spirit has a
sense of humor, like, and so ifI had started with the doctrine,
I probably would have taken alonger time to go through the
process, because I would havegotten caught up in it. Because
I mean, think about if you'renew to that doctrine, like
(19:17):
literally, I've been doing thiswork for over 30 years, when I
found out about the doctrine,and it literally made me sick. I
was in bed for three days,because it just literally made
me sick. This is so sick, and wedon't know about it, and nobody
tells us and we don't understandit, and then we're going well,
why can't we heal? Why don't weall just get along and it's
(19:40):
like, hello, you know, we gotwork to do before we get along
with ourselves as well as in theworld. So I was actually brought
in through a different door, andthat was the door of healing. I
had been married to someone whowas a severe alcoholic. He
wasn't a violent alcoholic, buthe was somebody who just you
(20:01):
couldn't trust him. He would goout and spend the entire
paycheck. He was in themilitary, the entire paycheck,
and literally would have to callmy mother get milk for my
children. So it was a scramblingof who's gonna get to the bank
first. It was just crazy. Hetook out my company car and
crashed it, and he didn't have alicense at the time. It was like
(20:24):
an insane life. Okay, so Ineeded healing. And so I
remember seeking counseling, andI had a great counselor at the
time. And he was this lovely manwho was white man who happened
to also have been gay. And solooking back, I realized, we had
(20:48):
connections because weunderstood oppression. And we
understood how thing, there werethings that we had in common, he
was a really good counselor forme. We were in the military so
he got sent away.
Then I went through a series ofyoung, white women who were
counselors. And by the thirdone, I remember sitting there,
(21:11):
it was my third appointment withthis young woman. And I had a
really rough week, I mean,really rough week, in my
household. And that was alsoapparent. I remember I walked
into the office, and I justburst into tears, because I just
feel like I was carrying allthis weight. I remember what she
(21:36):
said, but I remember sittingthere thinking, Oh, my God, I'm
screwed. There's nobody herethat can help. Because what I
realized was that I had livedmore in one week than that young
woman would ever live in herentire life. And, and so I was
(21:57):
like, Oh, my God, if I'm goingto get better, it's up to me. I
always remember, I used to be aTupperware lady and the folks
that ran the distributorship,had to say, and it was, if it's
to be, it's up to me. And I usedto always say that, and so I was
like, if I'm going to change andchange my life, there's nobody
(22:21):
out there who can do this forme, I have to do it myself. So I
started reading books, and sothen I started discovering
spirituality, and I starteddiscovering meditation- all of
these things. Literally bookswould fall off the shelf to my
hands, because it was almostlike my spirit going, girl, you
(22:42):
got to do something with yourlife. So I just really, I was
hungry for understanding,healing, how do you manifest
your reality. How do you likeall of these things. And so I
was reading a lot of Christianbooks and a lot of metaphysical
books. I really opened up theplatform of learning for myself.
(23:05):
And as I began to do that, Istarted to get better. And at
one point, I became healthy, andI realize that I need healing.
That kind of vague, you have tobe well enough to own your
sickness, and then you canunderstand, then you can unravel
(23:27):
it and understand it. And so, asa result of that, I began to
really look at what does it taketo heal. As I started getting
better, and feeling stronger,and strengthened my life, and
then my children started kind oflooking at what I was doing,
they were reading the same booksand learning the same things. It
(23:48):
became this thing, and my motherand I would talk on the phone,
and she started reading the samebooks I was reading and just
became kind of like this familything. Wow. It's all of us
started to to gain our strengthand feel better eventually, I
had the strength to get adivorce. But that divorce, left
me homeless. And so there I waswith my three little kids, and I
(24:12):
had no idea when I left thathouse, where I was going to go,
where I was going to live. And Iremember putting a blanket a
pillow in my car and sending mychildren to some friends and my
son saw that and he startedcrying. And he said, Promise me,
you're not going to sleep in thecar. Call one of your friends,
people love you. Somebody willlet you stay with them. Promise
(24:33):
me and I promised him so I didcall a friend. She goes, oh my
god, I have this friend that'sleaving town, we can stay at
their house. So all of thesethings started happening that
were almost like magic. And Irealize I'm being cheerful. And
so I come at this healing ofracism from the need to care for
(24:54):
me for each other. And we needto love one another. Because
that's really why we're herethis stuff gets in the way.
Everybody's child needs to eat,everyone's child should have a
home, every parent's job to havethe opportunity to get an
education, if that's what theydesire, or to work. People are
here to thrive. And for hundredsof years, this stuff has been
(25:17):
getting in the way. So I hadwritten three books before my
spirit in my intuition, exposedme to the Doctrine of Discovery.
Tony (25:28):
Let me let me ask you a couple of questions, you hit on
a lot of things. I'm a historybuff. So I like to connect some
dots here. The Doctrine ofDiscovery, then there was the
Berlin Conference, splitting upAfrica and now we have folks
(25:48):
against critical race theory. Sohow do you see race relations or
race healing, of traumacoexisting because it's a lot of
history? I mean, you went backto the 14th century, the Berlin
Conference was in the late1800s. So it's been going on a
(26:08):
long time. And colonization justrecently ended in Africa, in the
1950s-1900s. So it's acontinuation, it's like it's
always a fight or are wewinning? Are we losing? Are we
gaining ground? How do you feelabout that? What's going on?
Milagros Phillips (26:30):
It's always a fight. Because a lot of what's
been done to us leads toconfusion. And so some of the
confusion is we confuse violencewith power. And in fact, the
whole survival of the fitteststuff is all about that. I
always tell people, they need tostop saying that, how much
(26:53):
Darwin put it on a piece ofpaper? Because it isn't survival
of the fittest, it is survivalof the most violent, and the
ones with the biggest weapons.
When you have weapons that,first of all, when you don't
even understand the concept ofownership, you understand the
concept of stewardship. Thoseare two very different things.
(27:15):
And natives all over the worldunderstood, stewardship. This
concept of ownership comes frompeople who lived in cold
climates, who when they lookedout into their world, nine
months out of the year, therewasn't even a leaf on a tree.
And so their perception of theworld was one of lack, there's
(27:37):
not enough, there's neverenough. And we got to go get it
from those people over there,because they got some and got
weapons that we can use to goget it. Now, if your weapons are
set for hunting, for food,you're going to use a different
weapon, than if you're using aweapon to hunt human beings. And
we need to really understandthat like, when I talk to white
(28:01):
people about this stuff, what Isay is, one of the things that
our white brothers and sistersneed to do is to face up to the
violence that caused them to betraumatized, and then go off and
traumatize the rest of theworld. It may not be your
fingers for responsible forhealing it. Understanding that
(28:25):
is really important.
So how do these things coincide?
This whole idea of everythinghas to be fought through a war,
think about. Native people oftenhad, every once in a while they
would go to war, that wasn'ttheir first go to. They often we
(28:49):
try to work it out, to talk toone another, to find ways of
really looking at what is theproblem and how can we solve it
and how do we do this in a waythat we don't kill each other's
people. This idea of fighting,everything is part of the
(29:12):
problem. I always tell people,if we look at it, if we just
kind of peel things away, and welook at life from the
perspective of everything'senergy. Human beings are energy
bodies, we're surrounded byenergy. We're energy beings
living in a world of energy. Andeverything's in energy, and the
(29:34):
body makes a chemistry which isan energy for everything. When
if we're going to look at racismfrom the perspective of energy,
racism lives in the energy ofwar. We cannot solve racism from
the energy of war, becauseviolence begets violence, which
(29:55):
means war begets more war. If itisn't one thing, it's another
and if you notice that one ofthe ways that black communities
get attacked, is through war.
The war on poverty, the war oncrime, the war on drugs, it's
always some kind of frickin war.
It's ridiculous. So how we getour power back and how we take
(30:18):
our power back and how we ownour power, is by being the
sacredness of what we as humanbeings were created to be, which
is love. It's really hard forsome people who are living in
the war zone. I know that. But Ialso know that there have been
experiments that have been done,like the Maharishi Effect, which
(30:39):
is where they take people andthey train them to hold the
frequency of love in theirhearts, in their mind, in their
spirit. Our hearts, put out anelectromagnetic field that goes
up between three, and dependingon what's going on in your body,
30 feet beyond your body, but atleast between three and eight
(31:00):
feet beyond your body. Whichmeans that what you're thinking,
what you're feeling, what you'reexperiencing, affects the people
in your field.
So what they used to deal withtheir Maharishi Effect is they
would take people and they wouldtrain them to hold this
frequency of love. And once theywere strong enough in that
(31:21):
frequency, they would then dropthem into places where there was
conflict, or war. And what theynoticed was that things would
come down with just have oneperson there, and they would
remove the person and thingswill go haywire again. And they
did this over and over and overagain. You can look it up. It's
called the Maharishi Effect. M AH A, R I S, H, I H, I believe.
(31:47):
So what that tells us is, ifwe're truly going to solve
racism, we're really going towork on creating a different
world. We can't go over thereand do it the way they do.
Because that's going to create,that it's going to continue to
create the havoc that has Oh,that's one of the ways they it's
the whole the whole war thing.
And all of our great leaders,whether it was Mahatma Gandhi,
(32:09):
Martin Luther King, MotherTeresa said one thing, violence
begets violence. That's why theyworked on peace. If we're really
going to shift things, and evenin our own bodies, just thinking
about the word peace, changesthe frequency in our bodies. And
I've proven that over and overand over again, because of an
(32:32):
exercise that I do in myseminar, to help people find
racism in their body, where itlives in their body, and also
using the word peace to begin todissipate that energy. And so
what what we know now fromscience and research, and all of
those things, is that, if we aretruly going to change things, we
cannot continue to do things theway they have been done. That's
(32:54):
the definition of madness,because we're not going to get
any kind of different effect. Wehave to do things different to
get a different effect. And soone of the things that I talked
to people about is learning tohold states of consciousness.
And that's a process, learningto hold peace in your body,
learning to hold love in yourbody, learning to just learning
to hold different states ofconsciousness as a way of
(33:16):
changing your own frequency, andimpacting the frequency of the
people around you. And the thingthat also has been found through
some of these, this research isthat one person can change the
frequency of 1000s of people.
Tony (33:36):
So what's the movement like to change this frequency.
Milagros Phillips (33:44):
Things as simple as meditating on a word,
can literally change thefrequency in your body. So for
instance, let's I'm going to doa little exercise with the two
of you right here, right now.
If you just take a minute andjust take a nice deep breath,
and blow it out. You can closeyour eyes, but what you want to
do is you want to just bringyour attention to your body. And
(34:06):
you want to bring your attentionto your feet and notice how they
feel on the floor and your shoesand your socks. And then bring
your attention to your bottomand feel how it feels on the
seat where you're seated. Andthen bring your attention up to
your head. And just kind ofnotice how your face feels in
(34:28):
this moment. Take a nice deepbreath, blow it out. And bring
your attention inside of yourbody to the center like the
center of your chest and bringyour attention there. And notice
how your heart is beating andanything else that you notice in
(34:49):
your body. And now simply say toyourself without making any
sound just simply speaking theword to yourself. Say to
yourself the word Racism.
Racism. See if you noticeanything in your body. Racism.
(35:20):
Nice deep breath, blow it out.
Again, bring your attention toyour chest and simply say to
yourself Peace. Peace. And knownotice if you see if you notice
anything in your body. Peace.
(35:48):
Nice deep breath and out. Openyour eyes. Could either of you
tell the difference betweenRacism and Peace.
Tony (36:00):
Absolutely.
Toni Henson (36:01):
absolutely. There was tension. There was tension.
And then there was like, aweight being lifted with the
word Peace.
Milagros Phillips (36:10):
And where did you feel racism?
Toni Henson (36:13):
Oh, my neck, my back. My stomach. My whole core.
Milagros Phillips (36:20):
What about you, Tony?
Tony (36:21):
Same here. Body tensed up.
Milagros Phillips (36:24):
Yeah. And where did you feel peace?
Tony (36:27):
Calmness.
Toni Henson (36:30):
I felt it all over
Tony (36:31):
I felt it in the breathing. Relaxation.
Milagros Phillips (36:37):
So you just had a shift, not just in
consciousness in the moment butthat shift in consciousness,
change the chemistry in yourbody. And you felt it.
Tony (36:50):
Words on point. Wow.
Toni Henson (36:52):
This is all biblical. Life and death is in
the power of the tongue. lovecovers a multitude of sins. I'm
just hearing all of thisscripture come out. We've got
the book. Listen, MilagrosPhillips, you said one person
can make a difference. You aremaking a difference in the
(37:14):
world. Thank you so much. Pleasetell people how they can, tell
us how we can get in touch withyou. I will definitely provide a
link in the show notes to yourbook: Cracking the Healers Code
A prescription for healingracism and finding wholeness.
Let us know how we can get intouch with you, take some of
(37:35):
your classes and access you.
Milagros Phillips (37:40):
I do a two day intensive that when people
go through that program, theysay they never see race the same
way again, it is sotransformative for them. And I
do that program a few times ayear. I have one coming up at
the end of the year. You canfind me at
(38:00):
www.MilagrosPhillips.com whichis my name (.com). There are
courses there and their classesand information. I have a 15
week program for anyone who'sread my book, who wants to go
deeper into the healing process.
Powerful transformative program,I wrote the book based on the
two day program. So I've beendoing the work for a very long
(38:24):
time. This particular two dayprogram is 20 years old, I
started in 2001. There areprograms and of course my book
is available on Amazon. And thebook also has I created a
journal with all the chapters inthe chapter number so that as
people go through the book, theycan take notes, and they can jot
(38:45):
down feelings and emotions.
Because emotions will come up,this is part of discharging, the
conditioning is allowing for theemotions to come forth. So so
there's a journal that peoplecan access and that's also
available on Amazon. I also haveI mentioned two of my books, but
(39:08):
I also have a book 8 Essentialsto Race Conversation that I
wrote in 2016, along with 11reasons to Become Race Literate,
and Speaking Race in Healthcare.
And I just want to take a momentto say something about Speaking
Race in Healthcare.
I wrote that book because I'm soannoyed that every time they
talk about the research on TVand all over the media, they're
(39:30):
always talking about how AfricanAmericans have higher incidence
of you name, diabetes, highblood pressure. The thing
they're not saying is that theseare all stress related
illnesses. That we carryintergenerational historical
trauma that has never beenhealed. And literally it lives
in our bones. And we know thatnow through epigenetics. And
(39:52):
also, we have the micro andmacro aggressions that we
experience on a regular basis.
Talking to a white car colleagueat work, who may just say the
wrong thing, and we feel that inour bodies. Driving while black
talking about walking whileblack, like you name it. So we
live under a tremendous amountof stress and if we don't talk
(40:12):
about the fact that these arestress related illnesses, that
people who experience a lot ofstress on a regular basis are
suffering, then we're onlytelling half the story. And it
makes it look like black peopleare just sick, which we're not,
we're some of the healthiestpeople I know. And so given all
that we've been through, notonly are we still here, but
(40:35):
we're thriving in the best waysthat we can, given the
circumstances. So we are apeople to be proud of anyone who
hires us, hire somebody who canreally bring a lot of knowledge
and wisdom and awareness to anorganization. And so I just
really want people to get thatpeace that we are extraordinary
(40:57):
beings, living under some verydifficult conditions and making
it work. The best we can. Soimportant to remember. But you
can also email me atinfo@Milagros Phillips.com so
it's just info@(my name) I lookforward to hearing from you.
Tony (41:18):
Well, thank you so much.
Milagros. That's Black FamilyTable Talk.
Toni Henson (41:25):
You are a diamond.
That's what's up.
Milagros Phillips (41:27):
Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for inviting me. Thishas been wonderful, and I'm so
glad we finally got a chance toget together. So yeah, this is
great.
Tony (41:39):
That concludes this week's talk. We hope you found some
tools to add to your strongblack family toolbox. And be
sure to sign up for a freesubscription at
BlackFamilyTableTalk.com forspecial discounts and product
offers reserved exclusively foryou.
Toni Henson (41:57):
Don't forget to tell a friend about our weekly
podcasts and blogs available onApple Pod, Google, Pandora,
Spotify, and everywhere podcastsare heard. Under Section 107 of
the Copyright Act 1976.
allowance is made for fair usefor purposes such as criticism,
comment, news reporting,teaching, scholarship and
(42:18):
research. fair use is a usepermitted by a copyright statute
that may otherwise beinfringing. The news and
opinions expressed on blackfamily tabletop do not
necessarily reflect variousplatform hosts. All topics are
for entertainment purposes onlydiscretion to strongly advise
and all commentary is allegedThis is a Micah six eight media
(42:40):
LLC production.
As children, we begin to lose a lot of the
knowledge and awareness that wecome in with, a lot of our power
gets siphoned away from us and,and by the time we are adults,
we're just doing the best wecan. And we're often not always
but often in survival, whichdoesn't lead to thriving.
Tony (00:22):
Welcome to season six of Black Family Table Talk. We are
your host, Toni and Tony. Listenin weekly as we share unique
stories that inspire, build andgive voice to strengthen black
families.
Toni Henson (00:36):
This season is sponsored by Franz body care.
These are handmade products madefrom organic ingredients. I
personally recommend you tryfree me deodorant, it really
works. And it's free of aluminumtaupe perfumes and other
harmful, pore cloggingsubstances. You can shop these
and other black businesses onour website at
(00:59):
BlackFamilyTableTalk.com.
Welcome to Black Family TableTalk today we have Milagros
Phillips. Tell us your story.
What made you want to come andshare your gifts and talents
with Black Family Table Talk
Milagros Phillips (01:14):
Well, I have been doing healing racism work
for over 30 years. I hate to saybut like, Oh, it's a long time.
And in one of the things thathas happened to us as black
people, and I'm talking aboutthe diaspora collectively around
the world is obviously a lot ofour history has been raised, has
(01:40):
not certainly doesn't get taughtin the schools. In a lot of the
stories that are told about usare not necessarily told by us.
And so one of the things thathappens with that is that I
mean, it's a form of propaganda,when you don't allow people to
tell their own stories, becauseyou have an agenda. You want it
(02:01):
told from your side, right. SoI've been doing this work, as I
said, for a long time. And oneof the things that I realized is
that we just don't have enoughinformation to make the
transformation from the wound tothe healing. And so I recently
wrote a book called Cracking theHealers Code of perspective for
healing racism, and findingwholeness, because a lot of what
(02:24):
happens with how we are taughtabout race and racism is that
it's taught in such a way thatas children, we begin to lose a
lot of the knowledge andawareness that we come in with a
lot of our power gets siphonedaway from us and, and by the
(02:45):
time we were adults, we're justdoing the best we can. And we're
often not always, but often insurvival, which doesn't lead to
thriving, it just keeps us in acycle of survival.
So I wrote this book, becauseone of the main things that I
realized is that we're missing alot of the history. We're not,
(03:07):
like I said, we will learn it inschool, nobody teaches us that
history. A lot of what is calledBlack history in this country,
is actually the history of whitepeople perpetrating violence
upon black and brown people. Andas I tell everybody that comes
regardless of the color of theirskin, when they come to my two
(03:28):
day seminar, 20 of the work thatI do, is, racism is a problem
for people of color. It is not aproblem of people of color, and
racism is not our problem, wecannot solve that. What we have
to do for our own healing, is tobecome aware of our own
Stockholm Syndrome, which is howwe internalize the behaviors of
(03:53):
the people who kidnapped us.
Then we start acting like themand we're not even conscious,
especially generation aftergeneration, that we're doing it.
I also want people to know andunderstand that if we're going
to heal, we need our history,right? Because when you go to
the doctor because something'shurting you, the first thing
they ask you for is yourhistory. Well, second thing,
(04:14):
they want to know if you can paythem so they want the insurance
card. They need your historybecause they need to understand
what's happened in your lineage,so that they can understand,
what is happening to you now andcreate a process of healing that
will make you better in thefuture, right? Whether it's
(04:35):
tomorrow or next week orwhatever. So the historical
pieces are important.
Understanding trauma isimportant. And then having
patience and compassion withourselves because we don't know
what we don't know simply again,because we've not been taught a
lot of the history. I've wantedto come and speak to our people
(05:00):
about what is it we need to healfrom, over 500 years of
internalized racialconditioning? And really look at
what's missing in thisconversation?
Tony (05:16):
This is a topic Toni and I often discuss. I have a quick
look at your LinkedIn profileand you mentioned race literacy.
Is that a term you coined?
What's the background on thatterminology and can you define
it?
Milagros Phillips (05:39):
For sure, yeah. So in 2016, I wrote a book
called 11 Reasons To Become RaceLiterate. I was looking for a
definition for race literacy,because I just knew there has to
be one and I couldn't find. Butthe closest I came was, there
was a woman who was doingresearch in the UK and she used
(05:59):
the phrase, race literacy, toexplain what parents- black and
brown parents have to tell theirchildren about surviving in this
racialized world. My definitionof race literacy is very, it's a
bit different from that. So mydefinition of race literacy is
the knowledge and awareness ofthe history of race, how one is
(06:22):
acculturated into a racial castesystem. The laws and systems in
the nation state that supportthe human divide, and the impact
of all of the above on ourindividual lives, and our
collective experience. So that'smy definition of race literacy.
Toni Henson (06:44):
Now, what's your background and training?
Milagros Phillips (06:47):
I'm an artist.
Toni X (06:50):
Everything comes from the arts.
Milagros Phillips (06:53):
I am an artist. I went to music and art
High School in New York, I wentto FIT Fashion Institute of
Technology got a degree infashion design. I later got a
degree in business but really,I'm an artist. I'm an artist at
heart, I studied music as well.
So music and art and beyond, Istarted painting and the fine
(07:13):
arts. But I also studied musicbecause when I was a little kid,
I wanted to be an opera singer.
And I was probably the only kidin the country, who by the time
I was 11 years old, could singthe entire score to Ti Dia
Memoire in Italian. I absolutelyloved opera. That was my big
(07:41):
thing in life. I wanted to be anopera singer. And I had an
interesting encounter, a meet toencounter with my manager in New
York. As soon as I turned 18 andthey shut my voice down, I
stopped singing for about 26years. Eventually, I started
singing again, but it was doingsound therapy. And I began to
(08:02):
teach sound therapy, and Istopped teaching it 2008 or
something like that. But now I'mfeeling very called back to
that, in fact, I have anappointment to go into a studio
and do some recording in acouple of weeks. I'm an artist
through and through.
Toni Henson (08:19):
That's not unusual, though. I'm the I'm the producer
of the Atlanta Black TheatreFestival. I can tell you that
art is the source. It's our giftfrom God to heal, we use art to
heal. And it's such a powerfultool. And I believe it is truly
a part of our traditionalmedicine. If you go to any
(08:43):
country in Africa, you'll seepeople are happy and they're
thriving, and they're laughingand they're dancing, and they're
singing, and that's themchanneling that healing. And
it's a huge part of being humanso I can definitely make that
connection.
Tony (09:03):
So one of the things we're doing with the Atlanta Black
Theatre Festival, this is our10th year anniversary. This is
not a plug for the festival, weare taking a group of artists
and artists enthusiasts back toGhana. And one of our missions
is to close that gap betweenAfricans in the diaspora. You
(09:29):
talked about earlier, no one Ihistory. And I just want to ask
you, we were taken, sold intoand trade it for and to
enslaved, but we were denied ourculture, our history, our
language. I mean, we lost somuch and your training, what
(09:56):
does it encompassn when withregard to learning our history
and learning who we are, what'syour starting point?
Milagros Phillips (10:05):
Well, I actually start in Europe in the
1400s. I mean, we can start inthe 1300s. I started in Europe
in the 1400s. Because there werethings that are happening there
that impacted the world andstill continue to impact the
world today. And we never talkabout it. For instance, the the
colonization of Africa,particularly the west coast of
(10:29):
Africa, was something that wasinstitutionalized by the
Vatican, in the 1400s. It wasearly to mid 1400s. The pope
created something called a papalbulll. By the way, it's called
(10:52):
papal bull because there's alittle ball that's used at the
bottom that was held with a silkstring, when they seal it, and
stamp it with the the papalseal. Wax the papal seal once
they write what they write onparchment. So they had the
papacy and monarchy were alwaysat odds with each other, always.
(11:15):
So they were trying to find waysto be able to work together. And
this was one of the ways thatthey found. And so what the
papacy did, they createdsomething called the doctrine of
discovery. And that Doctrine ofDiscovery basically said, it
gave permission to the prince ofPortugal, who was known as Henry
the Navigator, which by the way,he never sailed, never, you.
(11:38):
That was his name given becausehe supported so many of these
groups to go out and sail andconquer. The actual papal bull
says to conquer, vanquish,subdue, basically take hold of
the land, the waterways, and thepeople and their possessions and
(12:02):
to turn the people intoperpetual slaves. That
particular piece of Vatican,it's called Vatican legislature,
was then revised several times.
And the last time they revisedit, for this particular thing
for this, the conqueringcolonization was in 1493.
(12:28):
What happened in 1493, that'swhen Columbus went back to Spain
after having visited Cascadia.
And after it was so many of theDinos died, and he took some
dinos back with him to provethat he had made it to India,
because remember that wasoriginally where he wanted to
go. So he thought he actuallyhad made it to India, because
there were spices, there wasplenty of food there. When he
(12:48):
went back, he took food, goldsilver, in some dinos back with
him to prove that he found thisland with all this wealth. Well,
it wasn't very long before thedoctrine of discovery was then
enlarged, to include the French,the Spanish, the Dutch,
(13:11):
everybody and anybody, becausethey just figured out that, oh,
there's gold in their countries,and silver, and diamonds. All of
the things that they weresiphoning the wealth out of
Africa And now they weresiphoning the wealth of all
these other smaller islands andlarger countries. And so that is
what made for the MiddlePassage. And a lot of our people
(13:33):
don't know that. And the thingis that, you could say, well,
that was a long time ago, what'sit got to do with us now?
Plenty. The Doctrine ofDiscovery has been used in over
5000 cases, to resolve over 5000cases, a lot of them are land
cases with natives. The lasttime that the United States of
(13:53):
America, the Supreme Court, usedthe Doctrine of Discovery was in
2005, when Justice Ginsburg usedit to win a case against the
United Nation in New York, itwas Cheryl base versus Oneida.
The Land Act, all of thesethings go back to the Doctrine
(14:14):
of Discovery. And basically, thereason that Justice Ginsburg
could use that is because thenatives, the United had bought
some land from Cheryl, which isa town in New York. And of
course because of some of thetreaties that we actually kept,
(14:34):
we broke over 200 treaties withthe natives, but one of the
trees that we kept was that theydon't have to pay taxes on their
land. So they buy this land, andwithin a certain period of time,
they get this big tax bill andthey're like, Oh, no, you made a
mistake, we're not supposed tobe paying taxes on our land. And
they said, Oh, yes, you are,because that land is now
(14:56):
sovereign land. And here's whysovereign land in the Doctrine
of Discovery, and basically whatit says is, if any European
walks on, steps on, steals, buysor anyway has anything to do
with the land, the waterway whatpeople always forget, and the
(15:19):
people, that they forever, thatland, let's just keep it with
the land right now, that landbecomes sovereign land, which
means that it could never againbe considered native land. And
so therefore, even though theybuy it, and they pay it, and it
belongs to them, they still haveto pay taxes, because it is no
(15:42):
longer can revert to nativeland. It has to remain sovereign
land, anywhere that they walkedor stepped or stole or squatted
or anything, anywhere in theworld, anywhere in the world,
that was not consideredCatholic. Now, this is really
important, because a lot ofpeople go, Oh, Christian, no, it
(16:03):
wasn't Christian, becausethere's a broader term. This,
the Doctrine of Discovery isvery specific. It the doctrine
of discovery was for any nation,or groups of people who were not
Catholic, because they wereconsidered savages. And so
therefore, the Doctrine ofDiscovery, still, today, it's an
(16:23):
international law, by the way,in any country that was ever
colonized is still under,Australia used it in 2010, or
something like that. Canada usedit in 2015. They use it all the
time.
So any country that was wascolonized is still under this
(16:45):
international law. And sotherefore, any lawyer at any
given point in time can use itbecause like, wow, they can take
up the book and go, it's in thebook, which is basically what
Justice Ginsburg did. But sowhat it means is that the lands,
waterways and the people who areunder perpetual slavery,
(17:12):
according to the Doctrine ofDiscovery, are subject to
whatever the laws of thedoctrine are. And if we don't
know that, we can't heal, wecan't transform. We can't join
the natives in asking theVatican to resend that law as
(17:32):
they can. And as long as the lawhas not been rescinded, it can
be used at any given moment intime against anyone. Remember
that it is the land, thewaterways, the possession is
ended up people.
Tony (17:47):
That's heavy.
Toni Henson (17:51):
How did you go from the Doctrine of Discovery to
healing because I'm looking atthe reviews from your book, and
they are phenomenal. And I'mgoing to read a couple of them,
because I'm just blown away bythe impact that you've been able
to have on people. And this onein particular hit me. It says,
"This is an easy read andunderstood, but brings forth the
(18:14):
hard truth of the hot buttonissue of racism to the fore of
how we can process it, and whatdoes it do to the perpetrator
and the victim alike. You'vereally find out that there
really is no divide between thetwo in the long run, because
(18:34):
both become a victim of thisdark illusion of separation."
That's a profound response toyour book. And there's so many
of them here, cracking thehealers code, a prescription for
healing racism. Tell us what,how did you get the connection
to the two?
Milagros Phillips (18:53):
Well, I always laugh that spirit has a
sense of humor, like, and so ifI had started with the doctrine,
I probably would have taken alonger time to go through the
process, because I would havegotten caught up in it. Because
I mean, think about if you'renew to that doctrine, like
(19:17):
literally, I've been doing thiswork for over 30 years, when I
found out about the doctrine,and it literally made me sick. I
was in bed for three days,because it just literally made
me sick. This is so sick, and wedon't know about it, and nobody
tells us and we don't understandit, and then we're going well,
why can't we heal? Why don't weall just get along and it's
(19:40):
like, hello, you know, we gotwork to do before we get along
with ourselves as well as in theworld. So I was actually brought
in through a different door, andthat was the door of healing. I
had been married to someone whowas a severe alcoholic. He
wasn't a violent alcoholic, buthe was somebody who just you
(20:01):
couldn't trust him. He would goout and spend the entire
paycheck. He was in themilitary, the entire paycheck,
and literally would have to callmy mother get milk for my
children. So it was a scramblingof who's gonna get to the bank
first. It was just crazy. Hetook out my company car and
crashed it, and he didn't have alicense at the time. It was like
(20:24):
an insane life. Okay, so Ineeded healing. And so I
remember seeking counseling, andI had a great counselor at the
time. And he was this lovely manwho was white man who happened
to also have been gay. And solooking back, I realized, we had
(20:48):
connections because weunderstood oppression. And we
understood how thing, there werethings that we had in common, he
was a really good counselor forme. We were in the military so
he got sent away.
Then I went through a series ofyoung, white women who were
counselors. And by the thirdone, I remember sitting there,
(21:11):
it was my third appointment withthis young woman. And I had a
really rough week, I mean,really rough week, in my
household. And that was alsoapparent. I remember I walked
into the office, and I justburst into tears, because I just
feel like I was carrying allthis weight. I remember what she
(21:36):
said, but I remember sittingthere thinking, Oh, my God, I'm
screwed. There's nobody herethat can help. Because what I
realized was that I had livedmore in one week than that young
woman would ever live in herentire life. And, and so I was
(21:57):
like, Oh, my God, if I'm goingto get better, it's up to me. I
always remember, I used to be aTupperware lady and the folks
that ran the distributorship,had to say, and it was, if it's
to be, it's up to me. And I usedto always say that, and so I was
like, if I'm going to change andchange my life, there's nobody
(22:21):
out there who can do this forme, I have to do it myself. So I
started reading books, and sothen I started discovering
spirituality, and I starteddiscovering meditation- all of
these things. Literally bookswould fall off the shelf to my
hands, because it was almostlike my spirit going, girl, you
(22:42):
got to do something with yourlife. So I just really, I was
hungry for understanding,healing, how do you manifest
your reality. How do you likeall of these things. And so I
was reading a lot of Christianbooks and a lot of metaphysical
books. I really opened up theplatform of learning for myself.
(23:05):
And as I began to do that, Istarted to get better. And at
one point, I became healthy, andI realize that I need healing.
That kind of vague, you have tobe well enough to own your
sickness, and then you canunderstand, then you can unravel
(23:27):
it and understand it. And so, asa result of that, I began to
really look at what does it taketo heal. As I started getting
better, and feeling stronger,and strengthened my life, and
then my children started kind oflooking at what I was doing,
they were reading the same booksand learning the same things. It
(23:48):
became this thing, and my motherand I would talk on the phone,
and she started reading the samebooks I was reading and just
became kind of like this familything. Wow. It's all of us
started to to gain our strengthand feel better eventually, I
had the strength to get adivorce. But that divorce, left
me homeless. And so there I waswith my three little kids, and I
(24:12):
had no idea when I left thathouse, where I was going to go,
where I was going to live. And Iremember putting a blanket a
pillow in my car and sending mychildren to some friends and my
son saw that and he startedcrying. And he said, Promise me,
you're not going to sleep in thecar. Call one of your friends,
people love you. Somebody willlet you stay with them. Promise
(24:33):
me and I promised him so I didcall a friend. She goes, oh my
god, I have this friend that'sleaving town, we can stay at
their house. So all of thesethings started happening that
were almost like magic. And Irealize I'm being cheerful. And
so I come at this healing ofracism from the need to care for
(24:54):
me for each other. And we needto love one another. Because
that's really why we're herethis stuff gets in the way.
Everybody's child needs to eat,everyone's child should have a
home, every parent's job to havethe opportunity to get an
education, if that's what theydesire, or to work. People are
here to thrive. And for hundredsof years, this stuff has been
(25:17):
getting in the way. So I hadwritten three books before my
spirit in my intuition, exposedme to the Doctrine of Discovery.
Tony (25:28):
Let me let me ask you a couple of questions, you hit on
a lot of things. I'm a historybuff. So I like to connect some
dots here. The Doctrine ofDiscovery, then there was the
Berlin Conference, splitting upAfrica and now we have folks
(25:48):
against critical race theory. Sohow do you see race relations or
race healing, of traumacoexisting because it's a lot of
history? I mean, you went backto the 14th century, the Berlin
Conference was in the late1800s. So it's been going on a
(26:08):
long time. And colonization justrecently ended in Africa, in the
1950s-1900s. So it's acontinuation, it's like it's
always a fight or are wewinning? Are we losing? Are we
gaining ground? How do you feelabout that? What's going on?
Milagros Phillips (26:30):
It's always a fight. Because a lot of what's
been done to us leads toconfusion. And so some of the
confusion is we confuse violencewith power. And in fact, the
whole survival of the fitteststuff is all about that. I
always tell people, they need tostop saying that, how much
(26:53):
Darwin put it on a piece ofpaper? Because it isn't survival
of the fittest, it is survivalof the most violent, and the
ones with the biggest weapons.
When you have weapons that,first of all, when you don't
even understand the concept ofownership, you understand the
concept of stewardship. Thoseare two very different things.
(27:15):
And natives all over the worldunderstood, stewardship. This
concept of ownership comes frompeople who lived in cold
climates, who when they lookedout into their world, nine
months out of the year, therewasn't even a leaf on a tree.
And so their perception of theworld was one of lack, there's
(27:37):
not enough, there's neverenough. And we got to go get it
from those people over there,because they got some and got
weapons that we can use to goget it. Now, if your weapons are
set for hunting, for food,you're going to use a different
weapon, than if you're using aweapon to hunt human beings. And
we need to really understandthat like, when I talk to white
(28:01):
people about this stuff, what Isay is, one of the things that
our white brothers and sistersneed to do is to face up to the
violence that caused them to betraumatized, and then go off and
traumatize the rest of theworld. It may not be your
fingers for responsible forhealing it. Understanding that
(28:25):
is really important.
So how do these things coincide?
This whole idea of everythinghas to be fought through a war,
think about. Native people oftenhad, every once in a while they
would go to war, that wasn'ttheir first go to. They often we
(28:49):
try to work it out, to talk toone another, to find ways of
really looking at what is theproblem and how can we solve it
and how do we do this in a waythat we don't kill each other's
people. This idea of fighting,everything is part of the
(29:12):
problem. I always tell people,if we look at it, if we just
kind of peel things away, and welook at life from the
perspective of everything'senergy. Human beings are energy
bodies, we're surrounded byenergy. We're energy beings
living in a world of energy. Andeverything's in energy, and the
(29:34):
body makes a chemistry which isan energy for everything. When
if we're going to look at racismfrom the perspective of energy,
racism lives in the energy ofwar. We cannot solve racism from
the energy of war, becauseviolence begets violence, which
(29:55):
means war begets more war. If itisn't one thing, it's another
and if you notice that one ofthe ways that black communities
get attacked, is through war.
The war on poverty, the war oncrime, the war on drugs, it's
always some kind of frickin war.
It's ridiculous. So how we getour power back and how we take
(30:18):
our power back and how we ownour power, is by being the
sacredness of what we as humanbeings were created to be, which
is love. It's really hard forsome people who are living in
the war zone. I know that. But Ialso know that there have been
experiments that have been done,like the Maharishi Effect, which
(30:39):
is where they take people andthey train them to hold the
frequency of love in theirhearts, in their mind, in their
spirit. Our hearts, put out anelectromagnetic field that goes
up between three, and dependingon what's going on in your body,
30 feet beyond your body, but atleast between three and eight
(31:00):
feet beyond your body. Whichmeans that what you're thinking,
what you're feeling, what you'reexperiencing, affects the people
in your field.
So what they used to deal withtheir Maharishi Effect is they
would take people and they wouldtrain them to hold this
frequency of love. And once theywere strong enough in that
(31:21):
frequency, they would then dropthem into places where there was
conflict, or war. And what theynoticed was that things would
come down with just have oneperson there, and they would
remove the person and thingswill go haywire again. And they
did this over and over and overagain. You can look it up. It's
called the Maharishi Effect. M AH A, R I S, H, I H, I believe.
(31:47):
So what that tells us is, ifwe're truly going to solve
racism, we're really going towork on creating a different
world. We can't go over thereand do it the way they do.
Because that's going to create,that it's going to continue to
create the havoc that has Oh,that's one of the ways they it's
the whole the whole war thing.
And all of our great leaders,whether it was Mahatma Gandhi,
(32:09):
Martin Luther King, MotherTeresa said one thing, violence
begets violence. That's why theyworked on peace. If we're really
going to shift things, and evenin our own bodies, just thinking
about the word peace, changesthe frequency in our bodies. And
I've proven that over and overand over again, because of an
(32:32):
exercise that I do in myseminar, to help people find
racism in their body, where itlives in their body, and also
using the word peace to begin todissipate that energy. And so
what what we know now fromscience and research, and all of
those things, is that, if we aretruly going to change things, we
cannot continue to do things theway they have been done. That's
(32:54):
the definition of madness,because we're not going to get
any kind of different effect. Wehave to do things different to
get a different effect. And soone of the things that I talked
to people about is learning tohold states of consciousness.
And that's a process, learningto hold peace in your body,
learning to hold love in yourbody, learning to just learning
to hold different states ofconsciousness as a way of
(33:16):
changing your own frequency, andimpacting the frequency of the
people around you. And the thingthat also has been found through
some of these, this research isthat one person can change the
frequency of 1000s of people.
Tony (33:36):
So what's the movement like to change this frequency.
Milagros Phillips (33:44):
Things as simple as meditating on a word,
can literally change thefrequency in your body. So for
instance, let's I'm going to doa little exercise with the two
of you right here, right now.
If you just take a minute andjust take a nice deep breath,
and blow it out. You can closeyour eyes, but what you want to
do is you want to just bringyour attention to your body. And
(34:06):
you want to bring your attentionto your feet and notice how they
feel on the floor and your shoesand your socks. And then bring
your attention to your bottomand feel how it feels on the
seat where you're seated. Andthen bring your attention up to
your head. And just kind ofnotice how your face feels in
(34:28):
this moment. Take a nice deepbreath, blow it out. And bring
your attention inside of yourbody to the center like the
center of your chest and bringyour attention there. And notice
how your heart is beating andanything else that you notice in
(34:49):
your body. And now simply say toyourself without making any
sound just simply speaking theword to yourself. Say to
yourself the word Racism.
Racism. See if you noticeanything in your body. Racism.
(35:20):
Nice deep breath, blow it out.
Again, bring your attention toyour chest and simply say to
yourself Peace. Peace. And knownotice if you see if you notice
anything in your body. Peace.
(35:48):
Nice deep breath and out. Openyour eyes. Could either of you
tell the difference betweenRacism and Peace.
Tony (36:00):
Absolutely.
Toni Henson (36:01):
absolutely. There was tension. There was tension.
And then there was like, aweight being lifted with the
word Peace.
Milagros Phillips (36:10):
And where did you feel racism?
Toni Henson (36:13):
Oh, my neck, my back. My stomach. My whole core.
Milagros Phillips (36:20):
What about you, Tony?
Tony (36:21):
Same here. Body tensed up.
Milagros Phillips (36:24):
Yeah. And where did you feel peace?
Tony (36:27):
Calmness.
Toni Henson (36:30):
I felt it all over
Tony (36:31):
I felt it in the breathing. Relaxation.
Milagros Phillips (36:37):
So you just had a shift, not just in
consciousness in the moment butthat shift in consciousness,
change the chemistry in yourbody. And you felt it.
Tony (36:50):
Words on point. Wow.
Toni Henson (36:52):
This is all biblical. Life and death is in
the power of the tongue. lovecovers a multitude of sins. I'm
just hearing all of thisscripture come out. We've got
the book. Listen, MilagrosPhillips, you said one person
can make a difference. You aremaking a difference in the
(37:14):
world. Thank you so much. Pleasetell people how they can, tell
us how we can get in touch withyou. I will definitely provide a
link in the show notes to yourbook: Cracking the Healers Code
A prescription for healingracism and finding wholeness.
Let us know how we can get intouch with you, take some of
(37:35):
your classes and access you.
Milagros Phillips (37:40):
I do a two day intensive that when people
go through that program, theysay they never see race the same
way again, it is sotransformative for them. And I
do that program a few times ayear. I have one coming up at
the end of the year. You canfind me at
(38:00):
www.MilagrosPhillips.com whichis my name (.com). There are
courses there and their classesand information. I have a 15
week program for anyone who'sread my book, who wants to go
deeper into the healing process.
Powerful transformative program,I wrote the book based on the
two day program. So I've beendoing the work for a very long
(38:24):
time. This particular two dayprogram is 20 years old, I
started in 2001. There areprograms and of course my book
is available on Amazon. And thebook also has I created a
journal with all the chapters inthe chapter number so that as
people go through the book, theycan take notes, and they can jot
(38:45):
down feelings and emotions.
Because emotions will come up,this is part of discharging, the
conditioning is allowing for theemotions to come forth. So so
there's a journal that peoplecan access and that's also
available on Amazon. I also haveI mentioned two of my books, but
(39:08):
I also have a book 8 Essentialsto Race Conversation that I
wrote in 2016, along with 11reasons to Become Race Literate,
and Speaking Race in Healthcare.
And I just want to take a momentto say something about Speaking
Race in Healthcare.
I wrote that book because I'm soannoyed that every time they
talk about the research on TVand all over the media, they're
(39:30):
always talking about how AfricanAmericans have higher incidence
of you name, diabetes, highblood pressure. The thing
they're not saying is that theseare all stress related
illnesses. That we carryintergenerational historical
trauma that has never beenhealed. And literally it lives
in our bones. And we know thatnow through epigenetics. And
(39:52):
also, we have the micro andmacro aggressions that we
experience on a regular basis.
Talking to a white car colleagueat work, who may just say the
wrong thing, and we feel that inour bodies. Driving while black
talking about walking whileblack, like you name it. So we
live under a tremendous amountof stress and if we don't talk
(40:12):
about the fact that these arestress related illnesses, that
people who experience a lot ofstress on a regular basis are
suffering, then we're onlytelling half the story. And it
makes it look like black peopleare just sick, which we're not,
we're some of the healthiestpeople I know. And so given all
that we've been through, notonly are we still here, but
(40:35):
we're thriving in the best waysthat we can, given the
circumstances. So we are apeople to be proud of anyone who
hires us, hire somebody who canreally bring a lot of knowledge
and wisdom and awareness to anorganization. And so I just
really want people to get thatpeace that we are extraordinary
(40:57):
beings, living under some verydifficult conditions and making
it work. The best we can. Soimportant to remember. But you
can also email me atinfo@Milagros Phillips.com so
it's just info@(my name) I lookforward to hearing from you.
Tony (41:18):
Well, thank you so much.
Milagros. That's Black FamilyTable Talk.
Toni Henson (41:25):
You are a diamond.
That's what's up.
Milagros Phillips (41:27):
Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for inviting me. Thishas been wonderful, and I'm so
glad we finally got a chance toget together. So yeah, this is
great.
Tony (41:39):
That concludes this week's talk. We hope you found some
tools to add to your strongblack family toolbox. And be
sure to sign up for a freesubscription at
BlackFamilyTableTalk.com forspecial discounts and product
offers reserved exclusively foryou.
Toni Henson (41:57):
Don't forget to tell a friend about our weekly
podcasts and blogs available onApple Pod, Google, Pandora,
Spotify, and everywhere podcastsare heard. Under Section 107 of
the Copyright Act 1976.
allowance is made for fair usefor purposes such as criticism,
comment, news reporting,teaching, scholarship and
(42:18):
research. fair use is a usepermitted by a copyright statute
that may otherwise beinfringing. The news and
opinions expressed on blackfamily tabletop do not
necessarily reflect variousplatform hosts. All topics are
for entertainment purposes onlydiscretion to strongly advise
and all commentary is allegedThis is a Micah six eight media
(42:40):
LLC production.
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