By Mama Marimba Ani
In 1974, I experienced Dr. Frances Cress Welsing for the first time as she confronted William Shockley, the white supremacist, physicist, eugenicist, on Tony Brown’s Journal, a talk show on PBS. Watching Dr. Welsing shock Shockley as he, no doubt, had never been shocked before, was to have a lasting effect on me and many others, including Shockley himself. As I subsequently studied her and her work,”The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation,” I came to realize that, “Confrontation” was, indeed, her forte, her strength, and her method of healing Afrikan people in preparation for war against those who would destroy us.
Dr. Welsing turned Shockley’s world upside down. She challenged his perception of himself. She took the ground from beneath him, robbing him of the confidence he had taken for granted. As a white person, he functioned in a system that had been constructed to convince him of his “superiority” and the inferiority of Afrikan/Black people. But Dr. Welsing snatched the rug out from under him by questioning the very things that he assumed. She sat facing him, brilliantly countering his arguments, showing them to be inept. She calmly considered his words, before coolly demolishing his assertions.
He had banked on the defensive posture which most of us took when told that our intelligence quotient was lower than that of white people. We sought so desperately to prove that we were “as smart as they.” We didn’t understand that we were thereby accepting the reality that they had imposed to prove the opposite. By defending ourselves within the context of their definition of reality, we had accepted it as true. We were allowing them to define the terms, putting them “in charge.” (We had not learned the most important axiom of cultural warfare; never let your enemy choose the game or make the rules. He will determine the rules to guarantee that he wins, even if you are the more skilled.)
The idea of the quantitative measurement of human intelligence should be obviously absurd, its cogency a figment of the white imagination. Rather than “defend” against a bogus claim, Dr. Welsing explained why his delusional behavior was necessary. She confronted his propositions head-on and dismantled them. She “flipped the script” and made him the object. His genetic inadequacy became the focus. His rather disjointed and feeble “arguments” were simply manifestations of his fear of genetic annihilation.
Even more than all this, for us as Afrikans, it is her posture that calls us to her and inspires us to be unapologetically and forcefully, Afrikan. From that day, as she continued to disarm white supremacists by exposing their illness and their source of power, her confidence became our confidence, her resolve our resolve. She was brilliant for us, and so we are “brilliant.” She was courageous, and so we gain the courage to take on the enemy. She did not run from the enemies of our people. She calls them out! Bolekaja! “Come on down, let’s fight.”
I was trained as a Pan-Afrikanist by Nana John Henrik Clarke. I later developed as an Afrikan Nationalist in the tradition of The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey. I am now striving to be the best Afrikan Sovereignist-Race Vindicatonist that I can be, as taught by Dr. Anderson Thompson, Dr. Bobby Wright and Baba Djedi Shemsu (Dr. Jacob Carruthers). The combination of these race champions has influenced my style of combat and my commitment to teach Afrikan students to be unrelenting as warriors for their people. Dr. Welsing’s example adds to this composite of trainers. She stood on the solid ground of race pride, much as Marcus Garvey had done. She broke the rules of academic ambivalence, detachment and intentional fuzzy-headedness. Her theories and arguments issued from the dire needs of a people under siege – her people. She knew that we couldn’t afford to spend another 400 years in captivity, not another decade. But without an understanding of those who have colonized and enslaved us, that would be our fate — for in the minds of the enemy, their survival depends on our demise.
Our healing as a captive and exploited people lies in our ability to acknowledge our fear of the system that has been constructed to imprison us. Acknowledging that fear is the operating principle. Acknowledgement of the fear will take away its power. She knew that confronting our fear would enable us to confront the system itself.
Through confrontation we become confident and therefore powerful. Dr. Welsing went “toe to toe” with white supremacy. That was what she did. She was consistent, unrelenting and unyielding. Her work was the healing of her people, Black people. She spent her entire adult life committed to that work. She, like Nana Marcus Mosiah Garvey and Nana John Henrik Clarke, is a warrior-healer who has helped to heal our trammeled and battered psyche. She understood, as did Bobby Wright and Baba Amos Wilson, that in a white supremacist world order, all human experience is racial. Everything is political. All reality has racial significance. It is all about power.
These ideas are threatening to non-Afrikans and to their allies and apologists. But hers was the total warrior posture. To be comfortable in the maafa is cultural, racial and political insanity. Everything she did was in opposition to racism/white supremacy. And she brought home, in clear sharp terms, the significance of Black power. Dr. Welsing, along with others named here, was among the few who could carry the epithet of “Leader of the Race.” To truly lead us, one has to be courageous enough to speak always in the interest of Afrika even when it is unpopular and dangerous to do so. She has to have vision. So Dayi.
II.
The brilliance of Dr. Welsing’s leadership and vision in the development of intellectual weaponry was enhanced by her ability to move beyond the self-serving restrictions of the academy. She, like Nana Clarke, Nana Marcus Garvey, and Bro. Malcolm Omowale X, is not handicapped by the affliction of academeitis. She did not try to impress the white world or confused Afrikans with a feigned “objectivity.” She had no need to camouflage or compromise her race-first ideology. Her systematic analysis is born out her heart-mind (Ib). That is what gave her the courage to confront an entire system of institutions constructed as a defense mechanism by the white collective psyche. Everything she did was toward the end of training us for successful combat. Her teaching, lecturing, writing and actions all took place in the combat zone. She ran interference. She was on the front lines.
In this continual process of confrontation with the enemy, she put forth tenets and configured weapons which we can use to attack what had been perceived as the impenetrable fortress of racism/white supremacy.
She begins by identifying the pathology: “racism/white supremacy.” She took control of the battlefield. She gave us “spectacles” and a microscope with which to examine the pathogen that she identified. She laid bare the nature of the illness, its etiology (cause) and its various manifestations.
Dr. Welsing proceeded to take the definition of racism out of the hands of the “racist.” She tells us that racism is inextricable from power. In this case, power is conferred by a system which gives power to white over Black, white over non-white. So only those in power can be “racist.” There is only one racism, and that is the system of white supremacy.
She defied the academy, knowing it as a product of the European world view, and the values and behaviors promulgated by white culture. The academy assumes the “rhetorical ethic” (see Yurugu, Ch. 6, pp. 311 – 336). “Never say what you are really thinking”… “Hypocrisy is the norm”… “Always hide your true agenda.” Dr. Welsing broke these “rules” of racism/white supremacy — psychopathology. She was always “in their face.”. Not the academic establishment, nor any other aspect of the white supremacist order, could intimidate her. They labeled her “essentialist.” But that is what she was and that is what we are. We are race-identified. She was clearly centered in her Blackness. Everything she said and did was for us and in the interest of her race. Her word was bond; what she told us to do, she did. She thereby alienated the liberals, leftists, academics and the other whites as well as all cowards, apologists, assimilationists and integrationists. We consider this a great Afrikan Sovereignist achievement!
Knowing that the white supremacist academy prevents the level of authentic and effective confrontation in which our people need to be engaged, Dr. Welsing provided a space in which we could “think” with Afrikan minds, through her Cress-Welsing Institute. There she continued the tradition of the Communiversity, so prominent in Chicago under the leadership and inspiration of Bobby Wright. The Cress-Welsing Institute is a space in which Afrikan/Black people can “be real.” Dr. Welsing needed to take us beyond the rules of the academy which disallow the connection of heart and mind because she felt the urgency of reaching out to the Black community with her healing work.
Her definition of “Black mental health” is “patterns of thought, logic, speech, action, and emotional response in all areas of people activity that simultaneously reflect self and group respect and respect for harmony in the universe.” (p.164) Since white supremacy does not allow for Black self-respect, within it, we, the Black collective, have “negative impact” on our environment. This renders us powerless. The white supremacy system shapes us, molds us into functional inferiors. This is the process of inferiorization. Clearly, there can be no Black mental health within the context of white supremacy. Thus, as long as we allow the system of white supremacy to stand, Black manhood must be understood to mean warrior/soldier. To be a Black man is to fight against the system of white supremacy “embracing everything that the words warrior or soldier imply.” (192)
Dr. Welsing rejects the Marxist explanation of white racist behavior. Instead, she understands capitalism to be firmly embedded within the European, yurugu world view; the thought and behavior which issue from white fear and result in anti-life ways. While Marx offers a systematic analysis and critique of capitalism, he does not deal with either the European world view or racism/white supremacy. To do so would be especially difficult for Marx since he was himself, afflicted by that pathology.
One of her most important achievements is to have established that “racism white supremacy” is a system. Once we understand that, then it becomes possible to approach racism/white supremacy with a “unified field theory,” a perspective which brings seemingly isolated patterns of behavior into an interconnected whole.
She understood that the global system of white supremacy includes but is not coterminous with exploitative, predatory, monopolistic capitalism. Racist, white supremacist behavior is a compensatory response (or reaction formation) to an overwhelming minority status numerically when compared with all of the world’s people. (The white collective constitutes only 8 percent of the global population, and even that number is diminishing.) Capitalism, like individualism, intense competitiveness, aggression, greed, narcissism, alienation, and other aspects of sociopathy is symptomatic of white collective fear of genetic annihilation.
Dr. Welsing was able to apply a psycho-historical analysis to white, western culture, by focusing on its “major patterns.” She used the symbolic matrix of white collective behavior to “decode” the cultural system.“ Welsing focused on the particularity and peculiar nature of this smallest and most violently anti-life collective. Joel Kovel, a white psychiatrist, in his book, White Racism: A Psychohistory, also attempted to apply psychohistorical methodology to a study of the same phenomenon, but, as we would expect, reached very different conclusions. Dr. Welsing correctly particularized the white collective psyche, identifying it feelings of inferiority and self-loathing. That is what makes her so formidable and threatening to the white world and to academia, as she focuses on their uniqueness. Their illness is not shared by other racial collectives. Kovel, on the other hand, assumes Freudian “stages” of development to be universally applicable. His conclusions are, in the most important respects, the reverse of Dr. Welsing’s. She maintains that racism/white supremacy is the result of white self-hatred. He argues that in the psyche of all human beings, whiteness is a desirable trait because in the anal stage of development, Blackness is associated with feces, and whiteness with “purity.” White skin, he argues, enabled the white collective to “discover” and use this symbolic “purity” to structure and exercise their power over other populations. Whites have used this kind of elaboration of anal fantasies” systematically…in the generation of power. No other culture has so drawn upon these primitive beliefs to superordinate itself to others” (Kovel, p.95). Welsing forces white people to look at themselves as aberrations (mutations). No white theoretician, no matter how “liberal,” no matter how “radical,” is going to approach the analysis of white racist behavior from that perspective. Dr. Welsing takes the ball out of their court. She examines racism/white supremacy in terms of white genetic inferiority and its attendant defensive behavioral construct.
Dr. Frances Cress Welsing raises the question of the psycho-biological implications of melanin in the human body. She argues that melanin is a neurotransmitter, and, as such, has the ability to enhance human communication, development and functioning . She postulated that melanin is a “superior absorber of all energy” (p. 231), and suggests that it accounts for “soul” or connectedness. She related melanin to the “affirmation of life” in contrast with “evil” as the destruction of life (p. 233). Speaking directly and forcefully to her people, Dr. Welsing tells us that it is our role to confront and fight evil, and that to ignore evil is to participate in evil (p. 234). In her view, psychiatry needs to deal with the proliferation of “evil” in the world. Her analysis has spiritual implications. Her ideas demand the serious scientific study of melanin/melatonin (See T. Owens Moore, The Science of Melanin, 1995). Melanin is a subject conventionally avoided by the mainstream white supremacist-controlled scientific hierarchy. They always avoid the subject publicly, often studying it intensely in hard to find places (see: the Journal of Pineal Research). No one wants to talk about melanin. The findings might imply that there is indeed a special role played by “Blackness” in Afrikan human functioning, especially since the first humans were, indeed, hued and quite Black. Whiteness, on the other hand, is caused by the absence of proper melanin functioning in a way that supercedes the perfunctory role that it plays in the “albino mutant” body. Whiteness is caused by the absence of melanin, the absence of “hue”, resulting, as it did, from a mutated adaptation to the conditions of the ice age. (see Cheikh Anta Diop, The Cultural Unity of Black Africa, 1989; Civilization or Barbarism, 1981; The African Origin of Civilization, 1974 , and Vulindlela I. Wobogo, Cold Wind From the North, 2011).
Dr. Welsing used her healing skills to address the “inferiorization of the Black child.” While there is a plethora of studies, articles and books addressing the poor and “negative” self-image of our children, almost none of them (with the exception of Bro. Amos Wilson) place this tragic circumstance in the context of the need to confront racism/white supremacy. Sister Frances was concerned with “enabling patients to neutralize the impact of white supremacy on their lives” (p.258). She told us that our “Black children can achieve a development of their Black genetic and constitutional potential second to none.” For Dr. Welsing the objective of healing and nurturing the potential of Black children is much more than getting better grades, or even admission into colleges, professional schools and “good jobs.” She was concerned that the Black child become a Black warrior, capable of “destroying destruction” (Ayi Kwei Armah, Two Thousand Seasons). This can only happen if their parents are mature enough and have the “space” to train, support and love them. It is because of her vigilant Afrikan warrior posture and commitment that for over four decades, she advised us to have fewer children, later in life. We have misunderstood her meaning. She was concerned with preparation for parenting, in order to prepare our children (our people) for war. She is not trying to show us how to be “successful” within the confines of the white supremacist “social” order. She was preparing us to confront it and to neutralize its power over us, which is the necessary prelude to war. This was her work. This was her intent.
We have touched lightly on some of the salient themes that make Dr. Welsing’s work so impactful and so extraordinary. She helped to change the way we see the enemy, the way we see ourselves and the way we reason about reality. This discussion is admittedly only the tip of the iceberg with regard to her impact on our thinking. As a racial collective, we have barely scratched the surface of her brilliance and her warrior-scholar-practitioner import for the Afrikan/Black political agenda. We must listen to her voice much more carefully now, lest we miss what should be its continued ideological and organizational impact on our political thought and behavior.
Let us now turn t, a critical issue that is a major feature of racism/white supremacy, yet has not been analyzed deeply by the Afrikan Sovereignty Movement. This discussion will help to demonstrate the timeliness, contemporary relevance, and the urgent need for the analytical framework that Frances Cress Welsing has given us. We have focused on her argument that white fear of genetic annihilation is the cause of their racist, white supremacist behavior. But we have dealt far less with the implications of her analysis as it relates to the real threat of total Black annihilation.
Sister Frances argues that “people who classify themselves as white” operate from a “kill or be killed” imperative. Let us suppose that is accurate and not merely a rhetorical exaggeration (which most “Black leaders” need to believe it is). Dr. Welsing is absolutely correct in her assessment of the motivation and objective of the white supremacy, global system of domination and control. If she is correct, if this overwhelming fear drives them, causing them to be psychopathically and compulsively destructive of Black people, then what would they be doing? What would they be saying? What would their geo-political policies be? Indeed, what is the “logic” of white fear?
In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus, a yurugu Briton, published the book, Principles of Population. In it, he argued that the human population was increasing in geometrical ratio, while their subsistence (food resource, agricultural production) was increasing only arithmetically. He warned of the danger of too many people, not enough food. He suggested that human reproduction be limited to the amount of food they needed to survive. Malthus was expressing his white fear of genetic annihilation and giving it “scientific” rationalization. Frances Cress Welsing has alerted us to this syndrome. Malthus was responding to his own observation and instinctual grasping of the fact that nonwhite populations, Afrikans in particular, outnumbered the white population, and were reproducing at, what for Malthus and other whites, was an alarming rate. The white population, on the other hand, was small and getting smaller. Scary? You bet. So Malthus constructed a “white lie” (the “biggest” kind), which has become the argument for Black extermination in particular, and the destruction of first world melanated populations in general. White “scientists” certainly did not want non-whites to realize their power potential, nor could they consciously face the implications of their own extreme minority status in the world. So they made up a story, and made it sound “real.” “If we don’t get rid of the majority of the earth’s people,” they reasoned, “we will starve.” So now in 2016, children are learning in school that “there are too many people on earth, and something must be done about it” (says the Gates Foundation). “The food supply is shrinking, so we must manipulate it and patent seeds for the good of mankind” (says Monsanto). Malthus sublimated the real fear with this new invention – the proliferation of Black life, and exchanged it for the fear of inadequate food supply, but it didn’t work. White genetic inadequacy still terrifies them. What Malthus did achieve, however, was the “rhetorical ethic.” The diversionary lie floats, and too many of us go for it.
What is the real deal with agriculture and food supply? There are 30,000 species of edible plants on earth at this time. Less than 100 are being cultivated. The yurugu (white) collective controls the cash food market. They create scarcity for profit. (Global, monopolistic capitalism). About 90 percent of what the world eats comes from only 20 species of grains and vegetables. This group cultivates the foods that they choose, that suit their taste, and that make them money. (This information comes from Dr. James Conyers, and Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World, also Dr. Vandana Shiva, Five Pants that Changed the World.) So the claim of “inadequate food supply” due to inordinate population growth is a “big white lie,” a cover for the extermination of what the white racist capitalists, call “useless eaters.”
Dr. Welsing has given us the only explanation for the perpetration of genocide by the white population against the Afrikan/Black race. A further elaboration of the Malthusian doctrine is seen in “eugenics,” a white “social movement” of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries in which white fear of genetic annihilation takes the form of the promulgation of non-white (Afrikan/Black) genocide. “Eugenics” is literally “good genes” – “science” which becomes the ideology of white dominance. The stated objective of this “anti” social movement is to “improve the human gene-pool.” This is done through selective breeding, sterilization of those who carry “inferior” genes, and other mechanisms of genocide. Eugenicists, like Galton (Darwin’s cousin), in 1869 said that what was needed were higher rates of sexual reproduction for people with “desired traits,” while simultaneously destroying “bad genes.”
Sound like “The Cress Theory of Color-Confrontation”? It should! White people are subconsciously aware of the fact that they have always been genetically and numerically “minor.” So they label everyone else as “minorities.” (“Hypocrisy as a way of life,” Yurugu, p.312f) The truth is that their fertility index is dangerously low. “Improving the gene-pool” means many more whites and fewer Afrikan/Black people. Black people should be discouraged from reproducing, whites need to be encouraged. But Dr. Welsing explained that white self-reproduction is problematic because they despise themselves and so do not want to reproduce themselves. However, for some decades now, several European countries (including South Africa), monetary and work relief incentives have been used to encourage pregnancy among the white population. The U.S. magazine industry is inundating the public with images of Hollywood personalities being pregnant and having babies.
Who are these eugenicists? Are they merely the “lunatic-fringe,” without financial means or influence in the world, figments of an active “conspiratorial” imagination? Think again. All of the players on the chessboard of global white supremacy are eugenicists. John D. Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan and now Bill and Melinda Gates, Ted Turner are some of the names that supply the funds that not only keep this “movement” alive and well, but also provide the ideology out of which the power institutions (schools, hospitals, agencies, foundations, corporations, etc.) are molded.
“The Rockefellers and other East Coast elites including Prescott Bush, the father of George H.W. Bush, funded and supported the pseudoscience known as eugenics” (Nancy Turner Banks, AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire: The Deadly Virus of International Greed, 2010, p. 223) These powerful eugenicists have put systems in place that will guarantee their power for generations to come. (See Nancy Turner Banks, AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire, 2010) .
The term “eugenics” is no longer “politically correct;” it is too obvious racism/white supremacy laid bare. So a new, more seemingly benign term is in use: “population control.” This is the same Malthusian doctrine in a somewhat new package. Eugenics now goes by the name of “population control.” The 2016 eugenicists claim to “love humanity,” especially Afrikan/Black people and other “underdeveloped” first world people. Their weapons of choice are: vaccines (2.3 million women and girls in Kenya sterilized through tetanus vaccines); GMOs (controlling the food supply); HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) using the environment (weather) to create unnatural disasters (for more information, go to geoengineeringwatch.org); chemicals polluting water; and forced vaccinations in Afrika. All of these are forms of race-based genocide. The Rockefellers have always been eugenicists; the World Health Organization is a vehicle for Afrikan extermination; The Centers for Disease Control helps to spread disease among Black people and promotes unnecessary and harmful vaccinations. In the 1950s and 60s only three vaccinations were recommended for children; now there are 60-70!
“The Vaccine Inquiry Compensation Program is a federal project that began in 1986. It relieves vaccine manufacturers, doctors, and hospitals from liability for vaccine damage. VICP has paid over $500 million taxpayer dollars to compensate families for damage and death caused by vaccines that were also paid for by your tax dollars.” (Banks, AIDS, Opium, Diamonds, and Empire, p.36, n.49)
The work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to stop the expansion of the world’s non-white population. According to Melinda Gates, she “loves” the people whose destruction she finances, and when asked what she considered the greatest gift to humankind in recent times, she quickly answered, “Vaccines.” The Gates couple believes in “population control.” What population? Who controls? Ted Turner says that the total population of the world should ideally be 250-300 million, a fraction of what it is now. The present population is approximately 7 billion, 280 million. Do the math. Who are the “extraneous” people? Who decides? Who does the killing? One guess. Ted Turner says that the world would be better off if almost 7 billion people no longer existed!
Dr. Welsing is the only one who explains such psychopathic behavior. These are the strategies of racism/white supremacy that threaten our existence. The Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey warned us. Nana John Henrik Clarke warned us. It’s simple. The whites are thinking “there are too many of them and not enough of us.” Yurugu with money are funding projects guided by policies that attempt to balance the scales, no matter what it takes; ”kill or be killed.” Dr. Frances Cress Welsing has told us clearly that “White Supremacy is the greatest evil on earth.” Are we listening?
III
To more fully understand the meaning of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing’s transition, we must go to Afrikan spiritual philosophy, which is rooted in Afrikan “deep thought” (Dr. Jacob Carruthers, Baba Djedi Shemsu). An explanation of the Afrikan life cycle and ancestor communion provides the context for that understanding.
In the eternal cycle of Afrikan life, a human being is acknowledged as having come from the spirit world (the ancestors and the source of life and being.) Spiritual reality manifests as “human beingness.” Thus, the Afrikan human being (Muntu) comes with a consciousness (‘Kra,). His or her “destiny” (Nkrabea) is carried within the ‘Kra and contains a “mission,” a “message,” an “intelligence.” We who are Afrikan have chosen to be so. To choose to be Afrikan is to choose to fight for Afrika, otherwise, why come back? We believe that each of us is an ancestor returned. Rebirth into Afrikanness is, then, both a privilege and a duty. We achieve continued connection to the Afrikan family and we become part of the race army. As Afrikans, we have serious work to do. Being Afrikan is not meant to be easy.
The cycle is maintained through the progression of developmental stages. These stages represent ever-increasing levels and degrees of responsibility, participation and maturity; moving from birth through childhood, adulthood and eldership. Movement from one stage to the next is a “transition.” Understood symbolically, one “dies” from one stage and is “reborn” into the next. Birth, death, and rebirth form a cycle of growth in human beingness, in cultural beingness, and commitment. Life begins at the source of being, energy, power and reality, (the life force, Odumakroma, Amma, Oludumare) and returns to the source, to be reformed into new life, or, the alternative which would be ultimate disgrace, pain and failure; that is, to become totally disconnected from the cycle: spiritual and cultural “death.”
At each stage of our development as Afrikans, we become more knowledgeable. We become “bigger” as we become more spiritually powerful. Perhaps the most important transition that we will make is that between being an elder and becoming an ancestor. The physical “death” of an Afrikan elder is not the end of the life of a muntu, an Afrikan human being. If handled properly, it is the beginning of a transition to the next stage in human beingness. Our “muntuness” takes on another more mature, spiritually and culturally powerful form. Physical death for the Afrikan is not the end of human conscious existence. We still are able to act with will and intent and to influence the physically alive world nation of Afrikan people. All cultural growth is focused on the achievement of becoming an ancestor, who is capable of guiding, protecting and nurturing the Afrikan/Black race. This achievement is of extreme political importance. It is the warrior ancestors who tell us where to go and what to do as a people. The ancestors are in front of us (Dr. Mario Beatty), so if we are culturally and racially connected, they will lead us. Thus Afrikan ancestor communion (“worship,” but a spiritual joining in reciprocal relationship), is a political, ideological concept, as well as a spiritual and cultural one. It places us within a system of race-accountability.
Dr. Frances Cress Welsing is now transitioning to the ancestral stage of her existence. She is being “reborn” as one of the most powerful Afrikan ancestors in “Ourstory.” Our relationship with her is one of reciprocity (Maat). With our help, she will continue to guide us, to teach us and to love us. It is our responsibility to remember her, commune with her warrior spirit, and to elevate her, as she guides, protects, and blesses us with her wisdom and courage.
IV
Although some may take umbrage, the discussion that follows is elevated far beyond what some might consider a “personal attack.” It is simply race, family business! (and if you can’t stand the heat…) I am speaking specifically to those Black people who have chosen this time to attempt to critique of Dr. Welsing, those committed to anti-Afrikan ideologies and death-styles, who couldn’t take her on when she was “in their faces.” They are revealing the same fear that she used her energy to heal: fear of the responsibility of being Black. They are clinging to ideas and elevating anti-life behaviors that do not work for the achievement of global Afrikan sovereign power. Not only are their loyalties misplaced, but they are manifesting intellectual and moral cowardice, and they are at a serious disadvantage. Having separated themselves from Afrikan spiritual deep thought, they have made the serious tactical error of acting as though Dr. Welsing would be easier to attack in what the European world view defines as “death.” Based on the Afrikan concept of the eternal cycle of life, we operate from a radically different frame of reference. As the honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey tells us, “In death I shall be a terror to foes of Afrikan liberty!…If death has power then count on me to be the real Marcus Garvey I would like to be!…I shall never desert you and make your enemies triumph over you!” So if you were afraid to confront Nana Welsing “in the physical,” you should be terrified to confront her now! For you have struck a rock in the spirit of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing and you have not only her to deal with, but all the rest of us, race vindicationists, who honor the lessons that she taught us. You were afraid to confront her when you could see her, but she sought you out. You were afraid of her, but she was not afraid of you. In fact, she would have healed you if you had only known that you were Afrikan and ill (Nana Arimenta Harriet Tubman, “I could have freed more of our people, if they had only known they were slaves.”). In attacking our Nana Frances, you have compounded your tactical error. Black people will dismiss you as nonentities in our race movement. No one who loves Afrikan/Black people will listen to you, for we are seeking to be healed of “Black fear.” We are seeking to claim our power. Those of our people who may have been confused or ambivalent will never again pay attention to anything you have to say! They will gain a new clarity. This is a moment of truth (Bobby Wright). It is time to look the “bull” in the face.
This is indeed a learning/teaching moment. Dr. Welsing’s passing separates the race-warriors from the race-traitors; the sovereignist-vindicationists from the integrationist-assimilationists. She is separating those who are not afraid to be “race-first,” from those who have made an ideology out of sexual behavior. Make no mistake, if it ain’t about race-first, it ain’t about nothing.
Dr. Welsing told us, “If we do not have confidence in our ability to make independent Black observations, Black analyses and Black plans for Black actions, why should we talk about or seek Black liberation?” (p.160)
Clearly, no person who “loves black people” (R.L. Stephens’ claim, in Black Agenda Report), no matter how often they professed to, would respect the ideas of Karl Marx, who dismisses Afrika, her history and civilization as “primitive.” Marx’s analysis is limited and cannot be used to construct the guidelines for the “Afrikan World Revolution” called for by Nana John Henrik Clarke. Marx was an avowed white supremacist whether the name was applied to him in the 19th century or not. He very often referred to Afrikans with the “n-word” in his writings and disparaged our physical characteristics and mental abilities.
“It is now quite clear to me that, as his cranial structure and hair type prove, Lassalle is descended from the Negroes who joined Moses’ flight from Egypt. That is, assuming his mother, or his paternal grandmother, did not cross with a nigger. Now this union of Jewry and Germanism with the negro-like basic substance must necessarily result in a remarkable product. The officiousness of the fellow is also nigger-like. (Karl Marx from a letter to Friedrich Engels, 1862).
Marx was incapable of critiquing the European world view, or of putting racism/white supremacy in its proper context. He was just another yurugu with despiritualized ideas about the acquisition and distribution of material objects to be manipulated.
Dr. Welsing focused on the need for the development of collective self-confidence and self-respect as a prerequisite for overcoming Black fear. Her passing is a critical moment for us. Will we be true to what she has taught us, or will we be intimidated by those who criticize her? This is an opportunity for our people to move forward toward authentic Afrikan sovereignty. Let us remove the naysayers from the discussion. We have no time for academic bantering. This is not a “seminar.” Dr. Welsing’s work was to get us to think clearly in the interest of Black people. The Marxists are clearly powerless. They can only “talk.” The fact is that the white sexual ideologues are powerful at this time, but only within the system of white supremacy. They have financial backing. They are well-organized and have used mafia-type methods to co-opt entire industries. As an organized collective, they usurp valuable real estate from Afrikan elders. They intimidate through phobia-labels (perhaps because they are heterophobic). They constitute a powerful lobby within white supremacist electoral politics. The left has aligned itself with this power-base. So do those Black people who identify as part of this political cohort. The Marxists have been parasitic. They need Black power. So they get some of us to refer to ourselves as “the black left,” as though it were an authentic movement of Afrikan/Black people. They are being manipulative. (But we outgrew Marxism with our ancestors, Richard Wright, George Padmore, even W.E.B. Dubois and others.) Why not just “the left?” The answer is “because they need our energy.” They have none of their own. No popular movement can be sustained by rationalistic, academic discourse and semantic repartee alone. They construct “fronts” which feed off of our spiritual and cultural energy. There is apparently no “black left” that has not capitulated to the financial and political power of homosexual politics. Their agenda is not Black. It is not Afrikan. And we certainly do not need Marxian analysis in order to critique capitalism. We know that capitalism is anti-Afrikan and bad for Black people. (see Wobogo, ch. 6, and Armah, Remembering the Dismembered Continent, 2010, ch. 3 “On Marx and Masks”) The so-called “black left” cannot be trusted. Dr. Welsing knew that. She was clear. She spoke truth (Maat). She stayed the course and so must we.
Everything is political. Every choice has political implications and issues from a political position. To choose one’s pattern of sexual behavior over Dr. Frances Cress Welsing is a choice made in fear. To listen to those who tell you that you have to make that choice in order to be “free” is to listen to the cacophony of confusion that she was able to expose as mere noise. Dr. Frances Cress Welsing is already sacred and iconic to the global Afrikan/Black Collective. Her detractors, choosing the time of her passing to come out of their closets, have effectively removed themselves from the discourse of a truly “Black agenda.” Dr. Welsing is the quintessential Afrikan; she is the “Brain of Black Power.” This is not a “defense” because she needs none. This is an announcement that any would-be critics at this special time, have made her all the more powerful among us and have exposed the opposition.
As she would point out, the “left,” ironically, gets its power from white supremacy. Within Afrikan sovereignty, and an Afrikan power system, they have none. She has forced them to expose themselves. They messed with the wrong one. Their critique is an affirmation of her work. According to one critic “1000’s will be influenced by her ideas” (R.L. Stephens, published in Black Agenda Report, January 5, 2016) Absolutely! Thousands have been influenced by her ideas and thousands more will be, and your feeble attempts have done nothing so much as increased that number tenfold.
V.
The attack at this time in particular has another purpose. These confused Blacks and their yurugu teachers must seek to anger us. But our Champion taught us how to fight. And we should pay strict attention to the behavior that she modeled. She never seemed to be disoriented by anger, although anger was certainly justified. She always approached her opponents with poise, the queenly posture of confidence. And she always won. We must not be distracted from our ceremonies of praise and honor. We must not be caught off guard or lose our rhythm. Their cowardly behavior cannot detract from our outpouring of love, it should only make the outpouring more profuse. She consistently focused on exposing the only form of racism; that is white supremacy, and on expunging Black fear. Everything she did and said was a preparation for confrontation with that which seeks to destroy us. Let us not lose focus at this time.
We must use our love for this brilliant and fearless Afrikan warrior to keep moving toward race victory. We are blessed because she belongs to us. She intimidated our enemies and those who may be used by our enemies, but she was never intimidated by them. She was never dissuaded. For over four decades she never lost focus, and neither should we. She did not waste time shadow-boxing. She taught us that we are in a race war, and the “real game” is the “power game.” And we love her because she is still teaching us how to win it!
This is a praise song. She is my hero.
Marimba Ani, February 9, 2016
(all quotes from Dr. Welsing are taken from The Isis Papers)
