I might not have believed this if a Human had said it. Humans said one thing with their bodies and another with their mouths and everybody had to spe… - Octavia E. Butler

Human beings fear difference," Lilith had told him once. "Oankali crave difference. Humans persecute their different ones, yet they need them to give themselves definition and status. Oankali seek difference and collect it. They need it to keep themselves from stagnation and overspecialization. If you don't understand this, you will. You'll probably find both tendencies surfacing in your own behavior." And she had put her hand on his hair. "When you feel a conflict, try to go the Oankali way. Embrace difference.

Lilith might be strong enough now to handle troublemakers herself, but she did not want to do that unless she had to. It would not help the people become a community, and if they could not unite, nothing else they did would matter.

Don't you know everything?"
God smiled. "No, I outgrew that trick long ago. You can't imagine how boring it was.