“If you don’t understand white supremacy & racism, then everything else you understand will only serve to confuse you.”  

Frances Luella Cress in was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA on March 18, 1935. Frances’ parents were physician Henry Cress and teacher Ida Mae Griffen, and she was raised with her younger and older sister. Frances graduated with a BSc. from Antioch College, Ohio in 1957 and attained her medical degree from Howard University in 1962.

Studies and works

She pursued a career in child and general psychiatry in Washington, working as a staff physician for Department of Human Services, and also as the clinical director of two schools catering to children with emotional troubles, before opening her own private practice in 1967. Through her published works and her research, Frances sought to help bring about a solution to the mental health problems of the black community by understanding racism.

Frances published her first major work, “The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation” as an essay in 1974 while assistant professor at Howard University. In the controversial essay, she argued that the drive for white supremacy and superiority stems from a pervasive feeling of inadequacy and inferiority. She claimed that “whiteness” was, in fact, a deficiency, evidenced by the inability of whites and other races to produce melanin which generates skin color. In short, white people in America could not cohabit peacefully with their black peers, because of a deep-seated jealousy of people with melanin and their embrace of racial supremacy to accommodate these feelings. The essay was controversial and, according to Frances, prevented her from not only gaining tenure at Howard but in fact losing her teaching post.

In 1991, she published her most famous work, a collection of essays titled The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors, which discussed in depth the issues of white supremacy and racism in the United States. In The Isis Papers, Welsing delved deeper into her theories of melanin deficiency among whites as the driver of racism, white supremacy, and white segregation.  In the process of psychoanalyzing white racism, Frances also discussed the importance of recognizing racial behaviors and symbols among blacks that were psychologically damaging and which needed to be countered and destroyed. She listed among those behaviors, homosexuality, which she claimed was a strategy for destroying black people, which naturally caused controversy and derision from those who do not agree with this theory.

Aside from her published racial and social theories, Frances was an advocate for a strong African American family unit. She advised black men and women to delay having children until their thirties and instead take the time to thoroughly educate themselves so as to rear the next generation of high-functioning and disciplined black Americans who could challenge white supremacy.

Frances Cress Welsing died in Washington, D.C., on January 2, 2016, after being hospitalized for a stroke. She was 80 years old.

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In her most recited piece of work; The Isis Papers, comes France’s most famous theory; Melanin Theory. The following paragraphs are Frances’ own words explaining her views:

White genetic survival

“I look at the system of racism having come into being consciously because the White population recognized, after they circumnavigated the globe, that they were a tiny minority, fewer that one-tenth of the people on the planet. And they were genetic-recessive compared to the genetic dominance of people who produce color. They realized that they could be genetically annihilated and White people could, as a collective of people, disappear. They worked out a system for White survival, which entails dominating all of the Black, Brown, Red and Yellow people on the planet. So racism is a behavioral system for the survival of White people. I would advise Black people and other people of color that since the practice of racism is the practice of White genetic survival, that the expectation that people who classify themselves as White can change this behavior is a high level expectation. Black people [must] finally understand that White people are playing a White survival game [which] has to inferiorize the functioning of Black and other people of color.”

Black reproduction

“Well, how do we come out of the inferiorized state? We have to devise those means of behavior that are going to allow for the maximal development of the Black genetically constituted potential. That begins with how we relate to the behavior of sex. If we want to produce strong Black males and females, then we have to realize that White supremacy is not going to set up the conditions where that will happen because they are in fear of strong Black, Brown, Red and Yellow people. The[y] set up a dynamic where you end up with large numbers of teenagers and children reproducing, single parents reproducing and not being able to guide the development of male children to functional adult male status. Black people [should] have quality control of Black reproduction. Well, how do we go about it? You have to have mature parents. You have to have parents who are married. If I could wave the magic wand, Black people wouldn’t have sex until they got married and they wouldn’t get married until they were 30. In the meantime, they would be going to school.”

“I am suggesting that for the sake of Black mental health and for Black intelligence that all people of color must understand the dynamic of racism/White supremacy, what it is and how it works, so that they can have an appropriate, self-respecting response to racism. Television is indoctrinating Black people to think of themselves as buffoons and clowns and trashy people. By understanding racism you will understand that this is what the system of racism survives on. As long as we are disrespecting ourselves and acting in a stupid, demeaning manner, this furthers the dynamic of racism/White supremacy and we need to give a lot of thought to that and decide that we are not going to participate in it.”

“The first war that we have to understand is the war of White supremacy against non-White people all over the globe. And from that vantage point, what is happening in the Middle East, I have labeled it WWIII. WWI and WWII were about the people who classify themselves as White dividing up the planet and taking control over non-White people. WWIII is this: if all of the resources are in the areas of the world where non-White people are, then people who classify themselves as White can go in and take those resources. [They] set up whatever pretense is needed to justify going in and taking control over those resources. The non-White people are not supposed to have any means to protect and defend themselves from this ultimate aggression.”

Sources: The Final Call, medium.com, blackpast.com.