Afrocentricity vs. Homosexuality

Effeminization as Oppression

A major tool of those who subscribe to white supremacy, according to Welsing, is the perpetuation of Black male passivity through encouraging effeminization, bisexuality, and homosexuality. Welsing believes this is "a problem of epidemic proportions am ongst Black people in the US."

Homophobia in communities of color is rampant...to the tenth power of the white mainstream. Why? Because the struggle for human rights against white supremacy has been disproportionately explained as the need to achieve "manhood" rights, from the perio d of the slave trade to the present.

Welsing believes homosexual patterns of behavior are simply expressions of male self-submission to other males in the area of "sex," as well as in other areas—economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, and war. Oppression is d efined as forced submission, homosexuality as a sign of weakness.

Welsing defines "primary effeminacy" and "secondary effeminacy" to distinguish white causes of homosexuality from Black ones. "Primary effeminacy" is a self-derived response by whites to their genetic insufficiency, causing a negation of self-reproduct ion due to disgust with their own genetic weaknesses.

"Secondary effeminacy" (Black male homosexuality) is consciously imposed on the Black man by the white man for the purpose of destroying the Black family. Welsing attempts to propagate a patriarchal concept of the Black family, which is curious, since it is afrocentric conventional wisdom that there was no patriarchy in traditional African societies.

Welsing does have a concept of gender roles being environmentally conditioned. However, a continuum would not represent qualities such as aggression and nurturing as universal that all humans can embody. Rather, the author clearly believes that in the process of the Black man taking on homosexual tendencies, he is acting like a woman. She is firmly against this as illustrated by the following examples.

From her work with incarcerated Black males, Welsing concludes that, as they have been broken by the system and forced to submit to an authoritarian environment, prison is the epitome of white supremacy. Black males are "feminized in jail" in the follo wing ways: They are given orders by men to whom they must submit; they wait passively to be fed three meals a day by men; and finally, they have sexual intercourse with men.

Welsing, in an attack on cross dressers of the "Flip Wilson/Geraldine" variety, implies that a real Black man wouldn't wear earrings or bracelets. How can an African-centered critique of white supremacy discount the earring and bracelet wearing Masai w arriors or the "Mau Mau," just two of many examples of "manhood" in resistance?

The author, angry with the American Psychological Association's relatively recent repeal of their former opinion that homosexuality constitutes poor mental health, prescribes a distinct position for Black people. Black psychiatrists must understand tha t whites may condone homosexuality for themselves, but we as Blacks must see it as a strategy for destroying Black people. Welsing argues that homosexuals or bisexuals should neither be condemned nor degraded, as they did not decide that they would be so programmed in childhood. The racist system should be held responsible. Welsing believes the task of professionals who concur with her should be proactive treatment and prevention of homosexuality among Black people.