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Archae

(46,798 posts)
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 11:54 AM Dec 2014

Faux "news" Keith Ablow isn't the only batshit crazy psychiatrist...

This one is totally off the deep end.

#1246: Frances Cress Welsing

Frances Cress Welsing is a D.C. psychiatrist and completely batshit insane. She is particularly noted for her afrocentric “Cress Theory of Color Confrontation,” and The Isis Papers; The Keys to the Colors (1991). Welsing claims that there is a system practiced (consciously and unconsciously) by the global white minority to ensure their genetic survival by any means necessary, a system that attacks people of color (particularly of African descent) in all areas of activity, and that it is, accordingly, imperative that people of color (particularly of African descent) understand how the system of white supremacy works in order to dismantle it. So far, so good, perhaps – some over-the-top formulations, but that can probably be excused when dealing with a real issue.

But no. In The Isis Papers she formulates her pseudoscientific melanin theory, the gist of which is that white people are the genetically defective descendants of albino mutants, a mutation that may have caused them (justifiably, it seems) to have been forcibly expelled from Africa. And it is because “pure whitness” is so easily genetically lost during interracial breeding that light-skinned peoples have developed an aggressive colonial urge. She also ascribes plenty inherent and behavioral differences between black and white people to this “melanin deficiency,” since melanin is apparently a superconductor that absorbs all frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum, can convert sound energy to light energy, and work as a minicomputer to process information; a deficiency would accordingly be bad). Her evidence is apparently restricted to “her experiences as a psychiatrist”.

White people’s (accurate) sense of their own inferiority is exhibited in various cultural practices: “On both St. Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, the white male gives gifts of chocolate candy with nut … If his sweetheart ingests ‘chocolate with nuts’, the white male can fantasize that he is genetically equal to the Black male … Is it not also curious that when white males are young and vigorous, they attempt to master the large brown balls, but as they become older and wiser, they psychologically resign themselves to their inability to master the large brown balls? Their focus then shifts masochistically to hitting the tiny white golf balls in disgust and resignation – in full final realization of white genetic recessiveness.” I suppose such gibberish is standard fare in some branches of post-modern Freudianism – big claims are justified by vague associations between words in any manner the practitioner may fancy – but it is no less loony for that.

http://americanloons.blogspot.ca/2014/12/1246-frances-cress-welsing.html

13 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Faux "news" Keith Ablow isn't the only batshit crazy psychiatrist... (Original Post) Archae Dec 2014 OP
I suspect someone is pulling someone's leg. dixiegrrrrl Dec 2014 #1
Dunno, it looks more like a pseudoscientific instance of Poe's Law Warpy Dec 2014 #4
This whole black and white thing is getting out of hand on DU Tobin S. Dec 2014 #2
A "reaction?" No. Archae Dec 2014 #3
I'm sure the black people are going to be taking over the country any minute now Tobin S. Dec 2014 #5
Yes, it is. Archae Dec 2014 #6
What I'm saying is it's awfully suspicious Tobin S. Dec 2014 #7
Just take a look at the idiots I have pointed out. Archae Dec 2014 #8
Fair point LeftishBrit Jan 2015 #12
What about soccer? Soccer-balls are checkered black&white. DetlefK Dec 2014 #9
She really must be batshit crazy. frogmarch Dec 2014 #10
Utterly loony... LeftishBrit Jan 2015 #11
Someone ought to do a BritishLoons one... LeftishBrit Jan 2015 #13

dixiegrrrrl

(60,011 posts)
1. I suspect someone is pulling someone's leg.
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 12:17 PM
Dec 2014

That paragraph about the balls sounds very tongue in cheek.



Warpy

(113,130 posts)
4. Dunno, it looks more like a pseudoscientific instance of Poe's Law
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 12:43 PM
Dec 2014

It's impossible to satirize the fringe because they'll work hard to top it the next day.

The bit about nuts and balls is hilarious but not any wackier than the other stuff sociobiologists have come up with and published in all sincerity to the hilarity of sensible people, trying vainly to prove the superiority of one race over the other or one sex over the other.

I also notice how she focuses on nuts and balls but failed to focus on white men eating white Cavendish bananas. I wonder what she'd make of that one.

Then again, even Freud said sometimes a banana is only a banana.

Tobin S.

(10,420 posts)
2. This whole black and white thing is getting out of hand on DU
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 12:24 PM
Dec 2014

and I am afraid we are losing some valuable people because of it.

I can't blame a black person for wanting to make the case that black people are superior to white people. In much of the white community it is a forgone conclusion that they are superior to blacks. Blacks get that message shoved into their faces every day.

Yeah, Welsing has got it wrong. But I think it's just a reaction to a society that is heavily biased against her.

Archae

(46,798 posts)
3. A "reaction?" No.
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 12:38 PM
Dec 2014

I still remember the "Afrocentric" movement from years ago, and the more off-the-deep-end stuff that came out of that.

This psychiatrist has taken a nutty premise, and ran with it completely.

Tobin S.

(10,420 posts)
5. I'm sure the black people are going to be taking over the country any minute now
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 12:45 PM
Dec 2014

and turning all of the white people into slaves.

Welsing is completely harmless, Archae, and I think your post is about more than just her.

Archae

(46,798 posts)
6. Yes, it is.
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 12:52 PM
Dec 2014

It's a total rejection of stupidity.

I don't care what race someone is, when someone is being a blithering idiot, I will say so.

Just look at Mychal Massie, one of the writers at WND.

He teamed up with another black guy, a preacher, for this:

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/harlem-stone-homos-pastor-leading-event-aiming-close-mississippis-only-abortion-clinic

An asshole is an asshole. Just look at Ben Carson.

Tobin S.

(10,420 posts)
7. What I'm saying is it's awfully suspicious
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 02:44 PM
Dec 2014

that you go looking for black people to rail against seeing as how there's a damn virtual race war going on in GD right now.

There are much larger, much more dangerous, and more stupid targets to go after than a misguided psychiatrist nobody has heard about. You had to dig really deep to find that one.

Archae

(46,798 posts)
8. Just take a look at the idiots I have pointed out.
Sat Dec 27, 2014, 03:33 PM
Dec 2014

Most are white.

Some black, a few Asians, a few Hispanics, a few Arabs, a few Israelis.

I didn't have to "dig" at all to find that wack-job psychiatrist.
Her name came up alphabetically at the Encyclopedia of American Loons.

As to how dangerous?
Just look at this in the entry:

"Diagnosis: Appalling pseudoscientific bullshit. And as with other pseudoscience, it is all about outreach, not finding out what’s actually the case."

So outside of her followers, there is no real danger, unlike the entry right under:

http://americanloons.blogspot.ca/2014/12/1245-dave-welch.html

This guy has the ear of a number of prominent GOP politicians.
So his wack-job beliefs will be more dangerous.
Obviously.

BUT...

If we call out one wacko, we need to call out them all.

Remember these "harmless" people who were simply ignored?
Charles Manson
Andreas Breivik
Jim Jones
Phyllis and Andrew Schlafly
Larry Klayman

LeftishBrit

(41,303 posts)
12. Fair point
Thu Jan 1, 2015, 07:26 AM
Jan 2015

Perhaps the worst consequence of such nuttiness is that it deflects from the real battles against white supremacism and other forms of bigotry and oppression.

LeftishBrit

(41,303 posts)
11. Utterly loony...
Thu Jan 1, 2015, 07:20 AM
Jan 2015

though so are the Bell Curve and worse theories against which this is reacting.

But two lunacies don't make wisdom.

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