Last But Not Least by Kevin

Last But Not Least by Kevin - July 2017 Scholarship Essay

Have you ever been discriminated against for something you cannot control? Race? Gender? Last Name? Well, it turns the silence at the end of the alphabet is over, because if I were to present an educational TED talk it would be about raising awareness about alphabetism discrimination.

I have always felt a sense of inferiority to my beginning and middle of the alphabet counterparts. We all learned our ABCs at a young age but little did we with a last name near the end of the alphabet understand how dreadful the effects this system of organization would be for the rest of our lives. It only took a couple of years after learning the alphabet for me to have vivid memories of people in elementary school being called up for their lunch first and getting to be at the front of class lines. My youth, as well as many others, was the dipping of our toes in the pool of discrimination.

In middle school and high school, these problems did not lessen. Always choosing my track jersey last, always picking topics for projects last, always starting my test and getting my test back last (because of my scantron at the bottom). Not to mention those horrendous school years in a class with a person in the class who has the same first name as you. It’s really difficult to forget those gruesome moments during attendance role call when you say "Here," but then you realize that they called the person with the name higher in the alphabet. These years were any but a pleasant experience.

However, there was a brief moment of hope this year for us at the end of the alphabet, when one Friday my Italian teacher was making us do speaking presentations in front of the class. After she said we would be going in alphabetical order, I felt proud to have an end of alphabet last name, meaning that I would get the entire weekend to write what I will say while others would only get a few minutes without access to translating websites. Next thing I know, she was calling people up to present in reversed alphabetical order, meaning that I would have to present fourth out of twenty-seven and that I would only get 10 minutes to prepare what I would say for my grade.

Moreover, the discrimination does not stop in High School. In the workplace, when a report is worked on by two or more people, the names on the report are listed in alphabetical order, despite who did more work. People subconsciously rank items in the order of most important to least important, so even though you did the most work, people at the beginning of the alphabet get the most credit. Additionally, names on programs, rosters, ballots, and job interviewees all appear in alphabetical order. I even have a friend that even witnessed herself not get chosen for a job because of the ten minutes it took the interviewer to put her application under the file for T while it took a matter of seconds to put another file under A.

It is hard to deny that people at the beginning of the alphabet have more of an advantage than those at the end of the alphabet.
However, not all of these problems are as trivial as they seem, because humans have been proven to pay more attention to items at the beginning of the alphabet. Studies have shown that as adults, people with last names at the end of the alphabet tend to have salaries 16% below average, they obtain only have about a third of top management positions, and that they are five times more likely than those with other last names to suffer depression or attempt suicide. Not to mention, people with last names at the end of the alphabet are less likely to be admitted to college, less likely to be chosen for a job, less likely to have job security, less likely to win the Nobel prize, and even less likely to be elected president.

So rise Q through Z!

Let's take a stand to end this underrated discrimination.

We need to take a stand and raise awareness of this issue, and presenting a TED talk regarding this issue would achieve such a task. People need to be coerced into acknowledging this type of discrimination in this ever growing alphabetical western world.