When truly equity is nurtured upon Mother Earth between the genders (Again, because I’m thinking of MLK.)
“So… Mari. Is that one a he or a she?”
“Gram-MAAAA…” Mari blushed. “You promised…”
“I did, I did. I’m sorry. I forgot.”
“I only let you be my show-and-tell ‘cause you promised you wouldn’t do any of the old-fashioned stuff.”
Gramma nodded. “I remember, now. I’m sorry, Mari. But… what do I do if they ask about it?”
“Remember what Mommy and Omom said?”
“Self-bowdlerize,” Gramma smiled.
They reached Mari’s classroom and Gramma got to sit in the teacher’s chair because of her knees.
Dan, who had social issues, immediately went to poke at the ink on Gramma’s arms. At least he’d learned not to poke hard.
“They’re all real,” said Gramma. “The ones on my arms go all the way up to my shoulders. I have adventure time on my left arm and Star Wars on my right.”
Dan, who had already found Gramma’s right arm, was making space battle noises.
“Dan,” said Mr Greely. “We don’t move clothes, remember?”
Dan politely backed off. “Sorry Mrs Mari’s Gramma.”
“This is my Gramma,” said Mari. “She’s the oldest person I know.”
“I was born in nineteen ninety-two,” said Gramma.
The entire class except for Mr Greely and Mari went, “Whoa!”
“Didja have a bomb shelter in ninety-nine? 'Cause of the world going to end?”
“My parents and I went out into the desert to watch the stars, every time the world was going to end. Once in ninety-nine, and again in two thousand, twelve. We’d have a campfire, and make s'mores, and tell stories. I don’t think we thought the world was going to end. But it was a good excuse to watch the stars.”
“Didja meet President Herera?”
“No, I never got to meet her. But I do remember the fuss and bother when they made the entire constitution gender-neutral.”
“How’d it used to go?”
“It said things like, 'all men are created equal’,” said Gramma, to the oohs of the class.
“How’d it work with only men being equal?”
“It didn’t,” laughed Gramma. “And it was worse than that. Only white men were allowed to be equals.”
“White?”
“Sorry. People of European descent. We used to classify people by their skin tone. The paler you were, the better you had it. And most of them didn’t even notice.”
The class looked around at each other, trying to imagine what it must have been like to live according to skin colour. Mari could almost see their brains fusing from the effort.
“Didja fight for the vote?”
“Ha! I’m not that old. No, that was before my time. I did have to fight for my reproductive rights.”
“Re-pro…”
“The right to choose when or if I had a child.”
Gasps.
“Were you in the gene riots?”
“No, dear, I went off to the desert again. I listened to it all on the radio. Sad business. I remember thinking that I didn’t want to live on a planet where a corporation could own the rights to my babies. But - we won. That was the end of super-mega-global corporations once and for all. And the end of corporate personhood. And many, many other dark things.”
“When did 'ze’ become official?”
“Three days after my daughter, Mari’s Omom, was born. I remember feeding her and watching the news. Oh, my goodness. It broke Rush Limbaugh.”
“Who?”
“Thankyou, dear. He was a bad one. A big, wealthy, europe-descended man who believed in his own supremacy so hard that he stroked out when the third pronoun went official. He didn’t respect his body, though. Treated it horribly. No wonder it turned on him.” Gramma sighed. “He was the biggest, loudest and most popular voice of the old, rich ED men. Without him… well. They couldn’t get anyone else to say the things he said and take it seriously.”
“What kind of things did he say?”
“You’re not old enough, darling,” said Gramma. “You have to be sixteen before you learn about the old prejudices. They made the world a narrower place.”
“How?”
“Hm. Let’s see. Men who killed their lady partners went to prison for months, but ladies who killed their man partners went to prison for years. There were more african-descended folks in prisons for lesser crimes than there were ED folks for any kind of crime at all. Schools used to train kids just to pass tests… they even had police to make sure all those with browner skins got all the bad attention.”
“Police in schools? Who’d do a crime in a school?”
Gramma stared at Jimi. “That was when they ran schools like prisons, dear. They’ve learned better since. We’ve all learned better since.” Gramma sighed. “And I’m glad. Even when I forget and use the old, bad words. I’m glad it’s all gone.”
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