7 things you would have learned if you read ‘The Isis Papers’ by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing

“There is no mental health for Black people without understanding racism and [whyte] supremacy; it is the major origin of stress that impacts us… There will never be peace as long as there is [whyte] supremacy.” ~Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing

The Isis Papers: The Keys to Colors by Dr. France’s Cress Welsing is my favorite book. It is a collection of essays written over 18 years; inspired by Neely Fuller’s book, The United Independent Compensatory Code. Fuller demonstrated what racism is, and where it functions. However, The Isis Papers shows how and why racism functions. Dr. Welsing analyses racism and its horrific effects by decoding the symbolism of European domination. It is interesting to note that symbols do not arise from conscious levels of thought. Hence, the dynamics of racism also operate below our conscious awareness, unless of course we are awakened to its subtleties. What Dr. Welsing makes clear is that what all non-European people are dealing with is the neurosis of European people, particularly the projection of their false consciousness. As Dr. Welsing states, “Any neurotic drive for supremacy is founded upon a deep and pervading sense of inadequacy and inferiority.”

When I read The Isis Papers, I realize that it did not matter how many history books I had read; if I did not have a psychological understanding of the system that destroyed black history, my education would have been incomplete. In his book, Civilization or Barbarism, Cheikh Anta Diop outlines the three factors of cultural identity: a historical factor; a linguistic factor; and a psychological factor.

Therefore, historical consciousness or having historical knowledge of self is not enough. Cultural identity requires that we not only know our history but also have a psychologically healthy Afrikan-centered mindset. Knowing our history is just one move on the planetary game of chess between African and European peoples. Recognizing what his-story has done to our psyche and why we are still psychologically enslaved is another.

Hence, a person can know black history inside and out and still be anti-black. Such a person would say things like, “We (Black people) must have done something wicked to have been enslaved.” And if you were to ask such a person, Did Europeans do something wicked that the bubonic plague in the mid-1300s killed more than 20 million of them? Or, Did Jewish people do something wicked to experience the holocaust? Or, Did the Amer-Indians do something wicked why they experienced genocide and the theft of their lands?, they would look at you with confusion and hostility because only Black people suffer the wrath of a vengeful “God”. This person knows black history but thinks its a lesser history in comparison to European history or European civilization. They’ve embraced the insulting terminology, “History from below,” which is often applied to history that is written from the perspective of Black people. Therefore, Rome was a better civilization than Ancient Egypt. Greece was a “classical” civilization compared to Mali. Even the word, classical, makes you understand why Diop, included a linguistic factor to cultural identity. The words/language we use can have an empowering or detrimental effect on our identity.

It is important to know that our beliefs shape our values and our values shape our identity. If a person values all things European (their literature, music, religion, wealth, pedigree, romance, films, education, history, technology, etc.,) knowledge of black history alone cannot change this, because black history is already devalued in their mind. Black history has to be contextualized psychologically (and linguistically) to withstand this value distortion. Our values more than our beliefs are very difficult to change. However, we would first have to change someone’s beliefs before we could change their values. Hard work! Changing a be-lie-f is an inner process and usually has to come from the person. It is challenging to get inside someone’s head if they have a closed mind. Therefore, an anti-black all-knowing black history person is the kind of person that would prefer to travel to Europe rather than Africa because they are fascinated by European architecture! Cultural identity for them is about “routes” rather than “roots.” But doesn’t the roots of a plant or tree travel different routes in order to anchor itself deeply into the earth, so that the plant can grow strong and withstand the force of the elements? My grandmother once told me in a dream to go back to my roots (Sankofa). I doubt any Afrikan ancestor (Egun) will tell their descendants to return to their routes. Such “routes” people seek inclusion and approval, from the cultural “other”.

The Isis Papers centers all my learning. It creates a firm foundation for me to build my historical knowledge upon and to understand our contemporary sociological reality. It helps me to understand the many contradictions within the Afrikan/Black world; especially understanding a person that is all-knowing about black history but who still behaves in an anti-black way. The Isis Papers cuts through all the confusion and deceptions.

Black history matters. It is vitally important to know the past and be connected to the memory of our people. However, our memory was brutally interrupted. The enslavement of our ancestors also involved psychological warfare and linguistic violence. We now speak the language of the destroyers of our history who told us we had no history. And within their language the “color” of our skin, black, is a negative word. We live in a state of unending trauma; and hence many of us have destructive, distorted and very negative beliefs about blackness, which shape our values. Therefore, historical knowledge alone will not make you fully comprehend the “evil” that necessitates the brutal murders of Black men in the USA or worldwide (In Brazil, a Black male is killed every 23 minutes!). Historical knowledge alone does not make you understand why someone would call a drama series, Orange Is the New Black. I’ve never watched this “programming” and never will. Nor Scandal. The Isis Papers enhances your awareness so you know without a shadow of a doubt that these programs are not entertainment, but a psychic mauling and social conditioning. They are the perpetuation of racism. Cress-Welsing shows you that these programs are not worth your time if you are a self-respecting Black person, or if you say that you are WOKE!

Dr. France’s Cress Welsing dedicated The Isis Papers to “the victims of the global system of whyte supremacy (racism), all non-whyte people worldwide, past and present who have resolved to end this great travesty and bring justice, then peace to planet Earth.”

According to Dr. Welsing,

No person who classify themselves as whyte… should presume to tell any Black person (or other non-whyte person) what racism is or is not, until they have read completely Kenneth O’Reilley’s Racial Matters: The FBI’s Secret File on Black America, 1960-1972.
No Black person… should discourse on racism or deny the conspiratorial dimensions of the local and global system of racism until s/he has read Racial Matters completely.
All non-whyte people (black, brown, red and yellow) should read and discuss the implications of the book, Racial Matters; the implications for themselves as individuals and the implications for their collective should be discussed in depth.
Then all non-whyte people should view the docudrama, The Wannsee Conference to observe exactly how a whyte supremacy government calmly sits and plan the destruction of a people classifies as non-whyte. The conference took place in Germany in 1941, to finalize the plans for the destruction of 11,000,000 Semities (non-whytes) of the Jewish religion. The German whyte supremacists succeeded in killing 6,000,000.

There is no book, like The Isis Papers. I’ve read many books, including the great Amos Wilson’s, Frantz Fanon’s and Walter Rodney’s. Yurugu by Marimba Ani is also a phenomenal book. Yet The Isis Papers stands head and shoulder above the rest. However, it is not a book you can read and psychologically assimilate without having an African-Centered mind or desiring to awaken from cultural amnesia. It will (and does) disturb those with a psychologically de-centered or ‘colonized’ mind. Cress-Welsing’s psychological concepts are so powerful as to shift the ground from under your feet. You either LOVE it or hate it.

Marcus Garvey said that we must emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. The Isis Papers will break the chains of mental slavery for those who are willing to be free.

Here are 7 things you would have learned if you read The Isis Papers:

1. What is racism?

Racism is not an attitude, prejudicial view, or even racial hatred. Racism is whyte supremacy and is a global power system of mass oppression for whyte genetic survival, in which the majority of the world’s whyte people participate.

People of color genetically dominate whyte people. Because Black people have the greatest potential to genetically annihilate whyte people they are the main target for whyte people’s violence and rage. “That the initial hostility and aggression came only from whytes is recorded in innumerable diaries, journals and books written by whites.” Hence, within the whyte supremacy mind-set, consciously or sub-consciously, Black males must be destroyed in significant numbers, as one drop of black blood makes you black. Just one drop! Hence, King Kong, a film in which a giant black ape plays opposite a whyte female, addresses in symbolic form the threat of the Black male to whyte genetic survival. Therefore, King Kong is killed at the end of the film, reflecting the desire for the death of the Black male.

2. The degradation of sex

Within the whyte supremacy culture, sex is viewed as a sin, and there is a need to being “born again.” There are no accounts of non-whyte peoples, in their basic religious or philosophical texts, conceiving of themselves as being born in sin or viewing their genitals as the bases of sin and evil. The concept of sin, shame, and guilt are related to the naked pale body. The original sin is the act of sex that produced the appearance of nakedness or the genetic mutation of albinism or [pale] skin.

Hence, there is an unconscious need for the whyte male to return to the black female, in the fantasy of being “born again”. For example, the black woman being called a Mammy. However, the whyte male also seeks to degrade the Black female in sexual encounters as he blames the original black mother who gave birth to them with a genetic deficiency. However, historically, the only way for whyte men to have sex with a Black woman was to enslave her and then defile her womanhood. Although Black people were classified as animals and inferior beings during the Maafa (slavery), the whyte men had no issue sexually molesting and assaulting an ‘animal.’

In addition, the extreme rage vented against even the idea of sexual alliance between the Black male and whyte female, which has long been a dominant theme in the whyte supremacy culture is as a result of the whyte male’s intense fear of the Black male’s capacity to fulfil the greatest longing of the whyte female that of conceiving and birthing a being of color.

3. Projection – “If hate and lack of respect are manifested towards others, hate and lack of respect are felt most often at deep levels towards the self.”

The system is one of contradiction and psychological projection based on deception and confusion. Confusion in one’s identity creates self-alienation. Whyte males, suffering from a deep sense of male inferiority and inadequacy, masculine self-doubt, fear, anxiety and self alienation have projected their neuroses onto Black males. While Black males can still maintain a sense of pride in their sexual potency, they have loss power economically which has produced fear and anxiety. Whyte males have been able to prevent Black males from true competition in all areas of activity: economics, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex, and war. Thus, Black men outwardly are living the inner nightmare or neurotic anxiety of whyte males.

According to Mark Twain, “…Nearly all black and brown skins are beautiful but white is rare. How rare, one may learn by walking down a street in Paris, New York or London on a weekday — particularly an unfashionable street — and keeping count of the satisfactory complexions encountered in the course of a mile. Where dark complexion are massed, they make the whites look bleached out, unwholesome, sometime frankly ghastly. I could notice as a boy, down South in the slavery days before the war. The splendid black satin skin of the South African Zulus of Durban seemed to me to come very close to perfection. I can see those Zulus yet…handsome and intensely black creatures… The advantage is with the Zulu, I think. He starts with a beautiful complexion and it will last him through. And as for the Indian, brown — firm, smooth, blemishless, pleasant and restful to the eye, afraid of no color, harmonising with all Colors, and adding grace to them all — I think there is no sort of chance for the average white complexion against that rich and perfect tint.”

4. Albinism

Pale skin is a form of albinism. There is no difference, microscopically speaking, between “white” skin of a Whyte person and the skin of a person designated as an albino. Cress Welsing theorised that pale-skinned people came into existence thousands of years ago as albino mutant offsprings of black-skinned mothers and fathers in Africa. These genetic defective albino offsprings were rejected and had to live away from the normal black population with the awareness of their rejection and alienation (as in leper colonies). The whyte tribe eventually migrated northward to escape the intensity of the equatorial sun of the Southern hemisphere and settled in the area of the world known as Europe. Sexual intercourse between the isolated albino mutants produced a whyte race.

According to the 19th century German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer:

“…the white colour of skin is not natural to man, but that by nature he has a black or brown skin, like our forefathers the Hindus; that consequently a white man has never originally sprung from the womb of nature, and that thus there is no such thing as a white race, as much as this is talked of, but every white man is a faded or bleached one.”

5. Penis Envy

Penis envy in the whyte supremacy culture began with the whyte male’s envy of the genetic power residing in the Black male’s testicles and phallus. Whyte envy of the black phallus is addressed unconsciously when whytes constantly concern themselves with the comparative size of the black phallus versus the size of the whyte phallus. This helps to explain why whyte males who wish others to view them or wish to view themselves as strong and powerful, puff and suck on huge black cigars. It’s an attempt to draw the attention of others to themselves with their long black cigars (their symbolic phallus). Also, the more important the whyte male perceives himself, the longer is his black limousine. Both the car and the cigar can be viewed as phallic symbols. It is again little wonder that whyte men build missiles shaped in the form of phalluses paint them white and use them to annihilate people of color around the globe.

6. Guns as Symbols

Despite the past and present potential carnage from handguns, there is tremendous resistance among Euro-Americans to have guns as well as other instrument of life destruction brought under control. For the gun as a weapon in whyte domination system/culture, in form and function is symbolic. The handle and chamber are analogous to the testicles; the barrel of the gun is analogous to the penis. The firing gun in function achievies for whyte the destruction of Black lives in the same way the black penis can destroy whyte genetic survival. The gun is seen as “the great equaliser” and hence the reason whyte men refer to one another as “son of a gun.” This phrase deprecates the whyte male genital apparatus that “fathers” whyte people with their genetically deficient state of albinism. It says instead that the whyte male prefers the gun to be his phallus and the phallus of his father. The gun then becomes the desired all-powerful phallus of the whyte male, which he conceives of as being an equaliser to the phallus of a Black and other non-whyte males. The gun makes up for a sense of profound and deep inadequacy hidden by a thorough and ruthless exterior. Cockfighting was also a very popular pastime for whyte males. Hence, it is not surprising that the whyte male also refers to his penis as a “cock,” or that when a gun is fired it is first “cocked.” The penis is also refer to as a dick. The dick was a detective with a gun, hence, Dick Tracy. Dick became a popular boy’s name, which instilled in the whyte child’s psychic that his identity was synonymous with penis(gun).

7. Black Fear

Black people throughout the world, live under the power of the whyte supremacy system of total oppression and domination, implying the absence of any true power. This is the major and only problem facing Black and all other people of color throughout the world. Since the assassination of courageous Black men, black people have been afraid to confront the murderous reality of whyte domination. Now the discourse coming from the black collective is consistent with submission to and/or cooperation with the racist oppressive dynamic, albeit with an historical and continuing chorus of complaints. Submission to and cooperation with the system is consistent with the illusion that there can be complete integration of non-whytes into the whyte supremacy system. The fear of death at the hands of whyte supremacy collective has been repressed. This fear has now crystallise itself into black suicide, black-on-black homicide, child and spousal abuse. Means of escape from blackness result into interracial dating/marriage and religious conversion. However, a prerequisite to overcoming the fear is the growth of self and group respect.

Source:
The Isis Papers by Dr. Frances Cress Welsing