Frances Cress Welsing

Frances Luella Welsing (née Cress; March 18, 1935 – January 2, 2016) was an American psychiatrist and well-known proponent of the black supremacist melanin theory.^{[1][2][3]: 3 [4]: 80} Her 1970 essay, The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy),^[5] offered her interpretation of what she described as the origins of white supremacy culture.

Frances Cress Welsing
Welsing receiving Community Award at National Black LUV Festival on September 21, 2008
Born	Frances Luella Cress (1935-03-18)March 18, 1935 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	January 2, 2016(2016-01-02) (aged 80) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Alma mater	Antioch College (B.S.), Howard University (M.D.)
Occupation	Physician
Known for	The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors (1991)

She was the author of The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors (1991).^[6]

Early life

Welsing was born Frances Luella Cress in Chicago on March 18, 1935. Her father, Henry Noah Cress, was a physician, and her mother, Ida Mae Griffin, was a teacher. She was the middle child of three girls, her elder sister named Lorne, and the younger Barbara. In 1957, she earned a B.S. degree at Antioch College, in Yellow Springs, Ohio. In 1961, she met Johannes Kramer Welsing, a Ghanaian, while enrolled at Howard University Medical School. They eventually married but had no children.

In 1962, Welsing received an M.D. from Howard University.^{[citation needed]} In the 1960s, Welsing moved to Washington, D.C., and worked at many hospitals, especially children's hospitals.

While Welsing was an assistant professor at Howard University, she formulated her first body of work in 1969, The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation. She self-published it in 1970.^[5] The paper subsequently appeared in the May 1974 edition of The Black Scholar. This was an introduction to her thoughts that would be developed in The Isis Papers,^[7] released 22 years later. This was a compilation of Welsing's essays about global and local race relations.^[8]

Career

In 1992, Welsing published The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors. The book is a compilation of essays that she had written over 18 years.

The title was inspired by the ancient Egyptian goddess Isis, the sister/wife of the most significant god Osiris. According to Welsing, all the names of the gods were significant; however, also according to Welsing, Osiris means "lord of the perfect Black,” although there is no etymological validity to this assertion. Welsing specifically chose the name Isis for her admiration of "truth and justice" that allowed for justice to be stronger than gold and silver.^[7]

In this book she talks about the genocide of people of color globally, along with issues faced by black Americans. According to Welsing, the genocide of people of color is caused by white people's inability to produce melanin. The minority status of whites has caused what she calls a preoccupation with white genetic survival.

She believed that injustice caused by racism will end when "non-white people worldwide recognize, analyze, understand and discuss openly the genocidal dynamic."^[7] She also tackled issues Welsing such as drug use, murder, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, incarceration, and unemployment. According to Welsing, the cause of these issues is white supremacy (the white man's race to the top). Black men are at the center of Welsing's discussion because, according to her, they "have the greatest potential to cause white genetic annihilation."^[7]

Views

In The Isis Papers, she described white people as the genetically defective descendants of recessive genetic mutants. She wrote that due to this "defective" mutation, they may have been forcibly expelled from Africa, among other possibilities.^[9] Racism, in the views of Welsing, is a conspiracy "to ensure white genetic survival". She attributed AIDS and addiction to crack cocaine and other substances to "chemical and biological warfare" by white people.^[9]

Welsing defined racism as:

"Racism (white supremacy) is the local and global power system dynamic, structured and maintained by those who classify themselves as white; whether consciously or subconsciously determined; this system consists of patterns of perception, logic, symbol formation, thought, speech, action and emotional response, as conducted simultaneously in all areas of people activity: economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war. The ultimate purpose of the system is to ensure white genetic survival and to prevent white genetic annihilation on Earth—a planet in which the overwhelming majority of people are classified as non-white (black, brown, red, and yellow) by white skinned people. All of the non-white people are genetically dominant (in terms of skin coloration) compared to the genetic recessive white skinned people".

Welsing was against white supremacy and what she saw as the emasculation of black men.^[7] She theorized that white people were the first people with Albinism who were driven from Africa by the black natives.^[10]

Criticisms

Welsing caused controversy after she said that homosexuality among African-Americans was a ploy by white males to decrease the black population,^[11] arguing that the emasculation of the black man was a means to prevent the procreation of black people. She also believed that white homosexuality was effeminate and an attempt by weak men at gaining more masculinity. Welsing believed that homosexuality is one of the products of the white peoples' race toward supremacy (using their own weaknesses as a weapon).^{[clarification needed]}

Death

By December 30, 2015, Welsing had suffered two strokes and was placed in critical care at a Washington, D.C.-area hospital.^[12] She died on January 2, 2016, at the age of 80.^[12][13]

Film appearances

• Welsing appeared in the documentary 500 Years Later (2005), directed by Owen Alik Shahadah, and written by M. K. Asante.^[14]
• Welsing also appeared in Hidden Colors: The Untold History of People of Aboriginal, Moor, and African Descent, a 2011 documentary film by Tariq Nasheed.^[15]

Works

• The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors, Chicago: Third World Press, c 1992 (3rd printing); ISBN 978-0-88378-103-6, ISBN 978-0-88378-104-3.

References

1. Newkirk, Pamela (September 2002). Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media. NYU Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-5800-7.
2. "Controversial Black Doctor Provokes Reporters' Reactions - The Washington Post". The Washington Post.
3. Newkirk, Pamela (September 2002). Within the Veil: Black Journalists, White Media. NYU Press. p. 3. ISBN 978-0-8147-5800-7. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
4. Walker, Clarence E. (June 14, 2001). We Can't Go Home Again: An Argument About Afrocentrism. Oxford University Press. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-19-535730-1. Retrieved December 31, 2020.
5. Welsing, Frances Cress (May 1, 1974). "The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation". The Black Scholar. 5 (8): 32–40. doi:10.1080/00064246.1974.11431416. ISSN 0006-4246.
6. Jaynes, Gerald D. (2005). Encyclopedia of African American society, Volume 1. Sage. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-7619-2764-8.
7. Welsing, Frances (1991). Isis Papers. Washington, DC: C.W Publishing. pp. i–9. ISBN 978-1-60281-959-7.
8. "PE THE 'PIGMENT ENVY' THEORY - The Washington Post". The Washington Post.
9. Ortiz de Montellano, Bernard R. (1993). "Melanin, afrocentricity, and pseudoscience". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 36 (S17): 33–58. doi:10.1002/ajpa.1330360604.
10. "Afrocentricity vs Homosexuality: The Isis Papers". www.spunk.org. Retrieved April 4, 2018.
11. Lehr, Valerie (1999). Queer Family Values: Debunking the Myth of the Nuclear Family. Temple University Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-1-56639-684-4.
12. "Educator Frances Cress Welsing Dies at 80". Rolling Out.com. Retrieved January 1, 2016.
13. . The Root.com. Archived from the original on January 4, 2016. Retrieved January 2, 2016.
14. (PDF). African Holocaust.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved January 2, 2016.
15. "'Hidden Colors' Filmmaker Tariq Nasheed: 'Eric Garner Was Lynched'". Huffington Post.com. July 30, 2014. Retrieved January 2, 2016.

External links

• Ortiz de Montellano, B. (2001) Magic Melanin: Spreading Scientific Illiteracy to Minorities, csicop.org; accessed June 29, 2017.