In the meantime, check out this fitting tribute to Mama Frances Cress Welsing from The British Blacklist….. HERE! 

MISSED THIS SHOW? Dont Worry, you can listen to it HERE!

You may also like to attend our next NOMMO SESSION – FEAR OF A BLACK PLANET: The Legacy of Frances Cress Welsing!

 

 

Due to the overwhelming response to our tribute show to Queen Mama Frances Cress Welsing, we are compelled to do a follow-up not only to further explore her ideas but also to examine the nature the critiques that have rapidly emerged since her passing. Before that we can announce that the Memorial Service for Dr. Frances Cress Welsing will be held on: Saturday, January 23, 2016, from 3:00pm to 7:00 pm at the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, 1518 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 and will be live streamed and live broadcast from WPFW 89.3 FM, www.wpfwfm.org. When Queen Mama Frances Cress Welsing drafted and published her Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation and Racism (White Supremacy), the Black Power movement was in the midst of the military and ideological war declared on it by the US state.  FBI intrigues had effectively exiled Kwame Ture and killed or incarcerated many leading activists.  As a consequence her previous Marxist ideology was replaced by something  she felt was more solution oriented. 

The Cress Theory and accompanying essays (later collected in The Isis Papers) were embraced by large elements of what is termed the Black Nationalist or Cultural Nationalist community and has endured to this day as a tool to understand the nature of the enemy and plot a strategy for victory:

“Once the victims of oppression accurately and completely decode the system and its objective of oppression and once they fully analyse the symbols and patterns of logic, thought, speech, action emotional response and perception (consciously or unconsciously determined) that constitute the system, the oppressed will be able to reorganize their own behaviour effectively. This reorganization will result in self/group-respect and support, and thereby end their oppression.” (1)

“Black male bisexuality and homosexuality has been used by the white collective in its effort to survive genetically in a world dominated by colored people, and Black acceptance of this imposition does not solve the major problem of our oppression but only further retards its ultimate solution.” (2)

In contrast, much of the black left/socialist school (which includes a significant portion of black academia) opposed the Cress Theory, in concert with its historical opposition to Black Nationalism.  In the 1960s Black Panther Party leadership equated Cultural Nationalists with “Black racism.”  Considering themselves revolutionary, they routinely characterize nationalists as reactionary, “non-persons” or even “a**-holes” (3).  This is spite of the fact that the most successful model developed in the last hundred years is a nationalist one – that of Marcus Mosiah Garvey and the UNIA-ACL.  What further seems to alienate much of the black left from Cultural Nationalists is the latter’s embrace of Afrikan spiritual mores that identify what is termed “homosexuality” as anti-Afrikan (4).

Therefore, it was unsurprising that within hours of her passing, critiques began to surface on social media from advocates of the left and homosexual politics. although thus far these have been dwarfed by the torrent of praise.

In declaring that they are putting their “whole reputation on the line” (though it is not clear who this person is, nor the nature of the reputation they are endangering),  R.L. Stephens II  asserted:

“The devastating miseducation wrought by her work will continue to plague Black political efforts years after her passing… Welsing built a career convincing thousands and thousands of people, mostly Black, that racism wasn’t the result of political economy, but was instead a product of biology. Her work, in effect, helped gut Black political resistance by delegitimizing anti-capitalist Black radical politics… Frances Cress Welsing’s anti-gay ideology isn’t a side dish, it’s the main course. Hating gay sex and gender fluidity is an inevitable and essential element of her theory, because her whole racial analysis hinges on heterosexist biological determination.” (5)

Stephens’ position ostensibly encompasses much of the obligatory menu of causes and positions to which much of the black left likes to subscribe:

• Rejecting/demeaning Black/Cultural nationalism as means of dismissing “race “ as a key feature in Black oppression;
• Insistence on the inclusion of non-Afrikans in activism;
• Largely uncritical embracing of “gay/transgenger,” etc. Politics.

“Dr. Welsing, like many afrocentrists, puts forward a conception of revolution that is doomed to fail. However, it has already been successful in provoking the politics of reaction, though not on the scale of her eurocentric predecessors. Under the guise of unity she continues the alienation of Black homosexuals as acting white and/or acting abnormal. Under an American system of white supremacy and capitalism, she attempts to put forward an Africa-centered agenda for Black revolution that is woefully ignorant of the political economy that destroys both Africans and Americans and, for that matter, the diversity of the culture of the diaspora. No one should hesitate from pulling out all the stops to oppose such retrogressive ideas, even at the risk of being proclaimed an “Uncle Tom” or a race traitor.” (6)

Stephens, Quest and others of their ilk that tend to dismiss nationalism as essentially counter-revolutionary but outside of their critiques neither offers a framework for action other than proclaiming a socialist politics that has brought Afrikans no closer to liberation 168 years  after the publication of the communist manifesto.  Similarly, some nationalists question the benefits of so-called “gender fluidity” in the fight for liberation. (7)

Such is their enmity towards nationalism that they routinely avoid all references to Marcus Mosiah Garvey’s UNIA-ACL (that consisted primarily of the “working classes”), or the Haitian Revolution, founded on “race vindication”. (8)  More than this, they continue to laud those of their ilk that sided with imperialism  (e.g. WEB Du Bois, A Phillip Randolph) to try and destroy the Garvey Movement.  By contrast, Omowale Malcolm X is praised, particularly for is “internationalism,” yet his professed nationalism right up to death, as evidenced in Program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity is (in)conveniently overlooked (9).

In contrast, advocates of Queen Mama Welsing argue that she provided a theoretical framework to discern the nature and scope of our oppression in order to establish a basis for liberation.   According to  activist and author Mama Marimba Ani “Welsing’s theory ‘works’ for the most part.” (10)

Indeed, in words that echo Papa Garvey, Queen Mama Welsing exhorts:

“If we do not have confidence in our ability to make independent Black  observations, Black analyses and Black plans for Black action, why should we talk about or seek Black liberation? One never should seek independence from those upon whom one feels permanently dependent, Black Fear for that would be an act of suicide. And, indeed, if that independence were won, it soon would be returned to the former state of dependence.” (11)

Taken to its logical conclusion what Queen Mama Welsing is advocating is going beyond campaign politics and intellectualism to the establishing of independent, self-determining institutions as exemplified in the UNIA-ACL in Papa Garvey’s heyday and continuing in the present under President General Baba Senghor Jawara Baye.  Other examples are current work being done by the likes of Mama Marimba Ani, the Akoben Institute under Mwalimu K. Bomani Baruti and Yaa Mawusi Baruti, NationHouse under Baba Kwame Agyei Akoto and the interim National Afrikan People’s Parliament in the UK.

(1) Welsing, Dr Frances Cress, (1991) Learning to Look at Symbols (1979), in The Isis (Yssis) Papers: The Keys To The Colors Third World Press, p 53-4. (2) Welsing, Dr Frances Cress, (1991) The Politics Behind Black Male Passivity, Effeminization, Bisexuality and Homosexuality (1974), in The Isis (Yssis) Papers: The Keys To The Colors  Third World Press, p 92. (3) Seale, Bobby (1970) Seize The Time: The Story of The Black Panther Party and Huey P Newton.  Black Classic Press, p 271; Nyasha, Kiilu (08/08/2012)The Revision and Origin of Black August, http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/revision-and-origin-black-august; Hunt, Desmond (1981) An interview with Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Other Side ‘zine, https://standupandspit.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/linton-kwesi-johnson-1981/, (4) Mazama, Ama (2009) Infertility in Encyclopedia of African Religion, Molefi Asante and Ama Mazama (Eds). Sage p341-2, (5) Stephens II,  R.L. The Hidden Colors of Frances Cress Welsing’s Historical Legacy (2016) . http://www.orchestratedpulse.com/2016/01/hidden-colors-frances-cress-welsing/, (6) Quest, Matthew. Afrocentricity vs. Homosexuality: The Isis Papers .http://www.spunk.org/texts/pubs/lr/sp001715/isispap.html, (7) Baruti, Mwalimu, K Bomani (2005) The Gender Confused Voice of Afrikan Manhood in Mentacide and other essays, Akoben House, p69-75, (8) Carruthers, Jacob H (1985) The Irritated Genie, The Kemetic Institute, p24-5, (9) Program of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. http://www.malcolm-x.org/docs/gen_oaau.htm, (10) Ani, Marimba (1994) Yurugu: An African-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior: African-Centered Critique of European Thought and Behavior . p452. (11) Welsing, Dr Frances Cress, (1991) Black Fear and the Failure of Black Analytical  (Ideological) Commitment (1979), in The Isis (Yssis) Papers: The Keys To The Colors  Third World Press, p 92.

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Afrika Speaks with Alkebu-Lan