Illustration By Jessica Egan
One day last week, over dinner, I was introduced to a new Georgetown student. Zusman, was his name. Immediately I sensed a kinship. Both of our names are at the end of the alphabet. My friends at the table, however, scoffed at our kinship. Zumbrun and Zusman, these people have similar names, not some commonality in their life experience. At this moment, I realized how pervasive the problem of last-name-discrimination has become in our country. Like any great social malaise, the plight of the caudally surnamed is largely unrecognized. The Joneses and Smiths of the world are completely unaware that this discrimination even exists. Content with their common names, they unwittingly allow the most capricious prejudice of alphabetical order to persist.
At some point, anyone with a surname toward the end of our great Roman alphabet has found himself standing last in the alphabetically ordered lunch line as the food turns cold, or sitting in the back corner of an alphabetically seated class. How are we expected to learn when we eat cold meals like some prisoner? Our childhoods are scarred with moments when an oblivious Williams or Wendell takes the last chocolate milk and we were forced to drink the chunky, vitamin-D homogenized milk. Since first grade we have been relegated to the back corners of classes, sitting next to children confined to the corner for spitballs, cursing and general delinquency. Is it any wonder that so many of us feel such strong criminal inclinations?
The Browns and Bakers of the world cry, “Quit whining! Vitamin D milk is good for you. There is nothing wrong with sitting in the back of the class.” Oh, but have you ever received the letter, “Harvard University regrets to inform you that we have, per our guidelines, accepted the maximum number of students before we reached the X,Y and Z application files. With so many strong and qualified candidates applying for admission we have to use some form of discrimination to narrow the pool. Gender, race, religious affiliation and other such designations being constitutionally protected, we selected surname as the arbitrary deciding factor .”
We need recognition. We need validation. Therefore, I hereby call upon the university to allocate funding to an XYZ center, providing resources for students whose last names begin with these letters. Inarguably it is the university’s responsibility to give money, campus space and faculty members to any group of students who determine that they suffer from discrimination. Already I hear the university protesting that an XYZ center runs contrary to Georgetown’s Catholic traditions. Names like Yoder or Zimmerman are Amish. What respectable Catholic would have such names?
In light of this, I revise my initial demands and call upon the university to fund an XYZQ center, which would include good Catholic names like Quinn. The Q is not just for Quinn, the revised center provides services to students with queer and uncommon names as well as services for students questioning their last name. Students who are considering marrying a Zimmerman no doubt need to discuss the consequences of this decision. The gift registry at Target or Sears for example, is alphabetical. Will your friends ever get to you? When the county courthouse catches on fire the walls always burn first and the XYZ wedding licenses are stored on the shelf against the wall.
You might laugh at the notion of unusual last names dismantling a relationship. But my heart laughs not when my mind recalls the lovely Annie, high school sweetheart and girl of my dreams, informing me that our wonderful relationship of four years is over because “Annie Zumbrun sounds retarded. I love you, Josh, but I cannot live my life this way. Spending eternity in the back corner of some alphabetized cemetery is not for me.”
Hopefully your scoff has now turned to a tear. Hopefully you have realized that surname discrimination destroys lives every day. Hopefully you realize that the only way to rectify this situation is to give money to those people with, what is referred to in PC lingo as, “terminally-situated cognomens.” The next time you meet a Yugliblian or a Zdrerdzhinsky perhaps you should not laugh as you try to pronounce their name, but extend a caring hand and offer them some chocolate milk. Embrace your daughter when she brings home her fiance, and you learn he is a Zurbrugg. Sign a petition for the XYZQ center. Be a part of the solution. We need you.
Josh Zumbrun is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service.
