Does “Oneness” mean “Sameness”? Does “Unity” mean “Uniformity”? Does “Singularity” mean “Similarity”?
Today I would like to ask you all a question. I really want to know. What do you think? What do you really think about this?
The other day I published as essay in this space by Tim Wise having to do with White Privilege. I thought the essay made some remarkably good points. Yet even if one did not agree with them, I thought the writing offered a good starting place for some keen intellectual discussion.
The article was biting, yes, but it was a piece of social commentary, after all, a social criticism, to be sure, and it was my imagining that we are all adult enough to absorb a bit of bite in our discourse. I certainly have had to be in order to simply read the Comments section of my own blog these past 12 months…
Within that context, I must say that I was surprised by some of the reaction. I know that people don’t like to be criticized, but I certainly did not find Mr. Wise’s observations to be “hateful,” as some here called them. He simply sought to make the point (and I thought he made it very well) that white people in the United States can exhibit certain behaviors and be praised for it–or at least be accepted–while the very same behaviors exhibited by people of color result in their being marginalized, criticized and ostracized.
Some of the best examples of this, I thought, were these observations by Mr. Wise in particular:

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because “every family has challenges,” even as black and Latino families with similar “challenges” are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

No one could seriously argue that the Palin family has been given a “pass” on this one, while families of color have indeed been “called out” for the very same thing.
And then, this from Mr. Wise…

White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don’t all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you’re “untested.”

Certainly no one could seriously argue that Sarah Palin’s experience, with 18 months in the governor’s office of a state with a population smaller than half of Manhattan, and her mayorality of that tiny town, makes her more qualified to step into the presidency (from which she could be one heartbeat away) than Barack Obama, who graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School, for heaven sake, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and who was an Illinois State Senator before going to the U. S. Senate.
I mean, my goodness, c’mon. What does a black man have to do (besides being the first man of his color to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review) to get at least as much respect for his experience as a white woman who never lived in a place more teeming with humanity than the suburbs of Peoria?
Yet there are those who insist that Ms. Palin’s experience is actually greater than Mr. Obama’s, and that she is more qualified to be president, should that eventuality occur.
Wow. I mean, wow…
Are we really comfortable with Sarah Palin as a possible President of the United States in the months ahead…but not comfortable with Barack Obama, on the basis of their relative experience?
No, no, of course not. It is not experience that makes the difference here, it is the two candidates’ points of view on important issues; it is their positions on the issues…right?
And where does Governor Palin stand on the issues?
Playwright Eve Ensler recently wrote, “Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist’s baby or not.”
“She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God’s plan.
“She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin’s view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered.”
And the Iraqi war? Ensler quotes Sarah Palin thusly: “It was a task from God.”
Governor Palin owns her own Austrian hunting rifle. And, Ms. Ensler reports, “She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.”
From the air.
Now there’s sportsmanship for you…
Oh, I’m sorry. No fair saying what is so. Not about a white woman. Yikes, I forgot…
But the real question I want to ask is not whether you think Sarah Palin has more experience and is better qualified to be president than Barack Obama, or whether you agree with shooting wolves from the air…
…the real question is…
Must a person who believes in “Oneness” never express an opinion? Is a person who teaches “Oneness” prohibited from saying anything with which another may disagree?
Because the biggest surprise for me in the Comments Section here the other day was the number of entries from readers taking me to task because they felt that my publishing Mr. Wise’s essay was a violation of the spirit of “Oneness.” It was, they said, “divisive” and promotes separation.
So now I really want to know: Are you suggesting that if a person believe in the Oneness of All Life that he may not, that he may never, ever, throughout the entirety of his life, express an opinion, share a commentary, offer a thought that might be different from, or other than, the opinion or thought of someone else?
Is this the measure and the requirement of unity…that a person who believes in unity may not believe in anything else that any other person may not believe in?
In other words, does “unity” require “uniformity”? Does “Oneness” demand “sameness”?
To be case specific, am I not to be allowed the expression of a personal opinion or a political preference, because for me to exercise such a privilege violates the mandate of “Oneness”? Is it only others – including not a few of the people posting commentaries on this blog – who are permitted the use of direct and often stark (if not to say “attacking”) language?
Thank goodness playwright Eve Ensler is not a spiritual author. That allows her to blog…
“I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.”
It also allows her to say…
“I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas, that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.”
Gosh, I wish I could have said that…but I can’t, because I believe in “Oneness.” And Oneness never, ever, ever expresses Itself in any way with which others may disagree, or in words which may have even the slightest edge. Oneness means loss of individuality and color. Oneness means sameness and blandness.
…or does it?
Is it possible to be unified without being homogenized? It is possible to be diversified without being divided?
Or do we wish to create a space for the free flow of opinion beneath this column, but not within it…?
(Ahem…)
POSTSCRIPT: Early this morning the person posting as Deb Reilly

entered this…
When things are said that intentionally offend others rather than educate alone, when the phraseology is sarcastic, it is not kind, and one must be willing to take the heat.

I am intrigued by what is described as a “pointed” argument, or a “heated” discussion, or a “passionate” comment — and what is thought of as “sarcastic.” This has always intrigued me. I am, of course, perfectly “willing to take the heat.” My comment above should not be characterized as my being otherwise. My question was, and is, Deb…
Does Oneness mean Sameness? Does Unity require Uniformity? So let me see if I understand you correctly. Are you saying that a person believing in “Oneness” can, after all, share an opinion or a comment or a belief that is different from some other parts of The Oneness, without violating the idea of Oneness, so long as the opinion or the comment or the sharing is not pointed, or heated, or direct, or thought by some to be “sarcastic”?
Would that, in your opinion, eliminate most of the comments of many posters on this blog?
…Or, for that matter, most of the interactions at most of the dinner tables in most of the Italian homes I have ever visited…? ;o)