Frances Cress Welsing | |
|---|---|
 Welsing receiving the Community Award at National Black LUV Festival on September 21, 2008 | |
| Born | Frances Luella Cress (1935-03-18)March 18, 1935 |
| 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) |
Frances Luella Cress Welsing (March 18, 1935 – January 2, 2016) was an American psychiatrist and well-known proponent of the pseudo-scientificmelanin 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 ofwhite supremacy culture. She was the author ofThe Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors (1991).[6]
Welsing was born Frances Luella Cress inChicago 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 aB.S. degree atAntioch College, inYellow Springs, Ohio.
In 1962, Welsing received anM.D. fromHoward University.[citation needed] In the 1960s, Welsing moved toWashington, 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 ofThe Black Scholar. This was an introduction to her thoughts that would be developed inThe Isis Papers,[7] released 22 years later. This was a compilation of Welsing's essays about global and local race relations.[8]
In 1992, Welsing publishedThe 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 goddessIsis. According to Welsing, all the names of the gods were significant; however, Welsing specifically chose the name Isis for her admiration of "truth and justice".[7]
In her book Welsing talks about thegenocide ofpeople 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 producemelanin. Theminority status of whites has caused what she calls a preoccupation with white genetic survival.
Welsing believed that injustice caused byracism will end when "non-white people worldwide recognize, analyze, understand and discuss openly the genocidal dynamic."[7] She also tackled issues such as drug use, murder, teen pregnancy, infant mortality, incarceration, and unemployment. According to Welsing, the cause of these issues is white supremacy. 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]
By December 30, 2015, Welsing had suffered twostrokes and was placed in critical care at aWashington, D.C.-area hospital.[9] She died on January 2, 2016, at the age of 80.[9][10]
Welsing was mourned by Benjamin Chavis, president of theNational Newspaper Publishers Association,[11] by Kevin Washington, president of theAssociation of Black Psychologists,[12] and byChuck D ofPublic Enemy, who credited her as inspiration for the albumFear of a Black Planet.[13]
InThe Isis Papers, she describedwhite people as the genetically defective descendants ofrecessive geneticmutants. She wrote that due to this "defective" mutation, they may have been forcibly expelled from Africa, among other possibilities.[14] Racism, in the views of Welsing, is a conspiracy "to ensure white genetic survival". She attributedAIDS andaddiction tocrack cocaine and other substances to "chemical andbiological warfare" by white people.[14]
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 theemasculation of black men.[7] She theorized that white people were the first people withalbinism who were driven from Africa by the black natives.[15]
Welsing's beliefs surrounding melanin have been criticized as pseudoscientific. She claimed that melanin givesBlack people supernatural powers such asextrasensory perception. She gave as an exampleGeorge Washington Carver, saying that his melanin enabled plants to talk to him and reveal their nutritional qualities.[16]
Welsing caused controversy after she said thathomosexuality among African-Americans was a ploy by white males to decrease the black population,[17] arguing that the emasculation of the black man was a means to prevent the procreation of black people.
In 1961, she met Johannes Kramer Welsing, a Ghanaian, while enrolled at Howard University Medical School. They eventually married but had no children.
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