Mindy Kaling’s brother pretended to be black to get into med school

I'm sure his interviewer just thought he was an Afro-Indian-Trinidadian mix.

 

Hey, props to him for gaming a racist system that pays more attention to the color of your skin than it does the content of your character and your qualifications. I think more people should do this honestly.

 

Yes... Props to him. And when the police roll up. Can't switch to saying... Don't kill me because I'm not black.

 

Literally none of those things would happen.

 

That shouldn't be a problem, I doubt he's going to be robbing any convenience stores, assaulting police officers, or resisting arrest. He should be fine.

 

Or holding a screwdriver, or reaching for his wallet, or in Wal-Mart shopping, etc... Yea I'm sure they would be.

 

Didn't that old Indian guy that got body slammed get mistaken for black?

Don't kill me bro!

 

Yeah, advancing on someone while carrying a weapon while they have guns drawn telling you to drop it is a pretty safe way to end up shot so is making sudden movements when someone has a gun drawn and walking around with a real looking gun in a Wal Mart. Yeah if he can manage to somehow avoid those pitfalls of being an idiot, he'll be fine. He should also avoid every-day activities such as yelling "I've got a bomb/gun/knife" while on an airplane, assaulting random strangers, and taking mind altering drugs that make him eat people's faces off or attack police officers.

It's going to be a hard road, but I think he can manage.

 

Didn't that happen in Alabama... Mistaken identity. Lol...

 

I'm for the idea of affirmative action for addressing historical issues but I agree that a purely race based system is problematic. I think that systems that address income and also regional issues like what UT did are much better. With those something like this would've likely been weeded out during admissions.

 

I wonder if we could make a case for those who are trans-racial to be able to put whatever race they feel more connected to regardless of their biological race. We really need to work to reduce the stigma that comes with transracialism.

 

Well, some colleges are more "disadvantaged" than others.

In most cases, professional schools weed out the lackluster candidates as is... far more than college.

In this case, he had to drop out after 2 years likely due to poor performance. Couldn't fake it forever.

 

Interviewed at Harvard and Columbia, but accepted at St. Louis. Is it really that much of an honor to be interviewed and not accepted by a top school? And, the article doesn't give any evidence that his race factored into the acceptance decision except what Vijay believes to be the difference maker. Besides which, he had the right school pedigree -- undergrad at University of Chicago. I think the story reflects poorly on his own ethical choices; I'm not sure it says anything about SLU or Harvard and Columbia.

 

According to my wife, the hardest part of becoming a doctor was getting accepted into medical school. The rest wasn't easy, but doable if you really have the desire.

I don't think that medicine is really a field where you should any form of affirmative action.

 

"Curry favor"..... I see what you did there! Well done River.

The caste system IS a reality on some level everywhere, including the United States.

 

Most likely his interviewer didn't know what the hell he was and was afraid to ask him or talk to him about it because he live in such an incredibly weird country when it comes to race relations.

It is okay to shoot a mentally ill black kid with a screw driver and it is okay for Chicago to be a cesspool of black on black violence.... but by GOD you do not discuss race because you may offend someone.

It does a disservice to everyone.

 

Schools only interview candidates they see themselves accepting, if you interview...you have a chance of going there. So yea the number of interviews a candidate gets is pretty telling of how strong his application was. Also, given his stats his stated race ABSOLUTELY played a favor. if you're indian, you actually need higher than average stats compared to the normal applicant, and his were absolutely....well...putrid. You can look on AMCAS or other website for acceptance average statistics if you don't believe me.

 

I feel sorry for the black doctors and nurses who are actually good at their jobs. A lot of them are really good, its the ones that got their jobs based on skin color that I worry about.........

 

Interesting excerpt from the article:

Chokal-Ingam said he came up with the idea of self-identifying as “black” after seeing fellow Asian Indian-Americans with better grades than he had struggle to get into med school.“I disclosed that I grew up in one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts, that my mother was a doctor, and that my father was an architect,” he said Saturday, describing his med-school applications.

“I disclosed that I didn’t receive financial aid from the University of Chicago, and that I had a nice car,” he said. “I was the campus rich kid, let’s just put it on the table. And yet they considered me an affirmative-action applicant.”

On affirmative action in general, Chokal-Ingam said, “Racism is not the answer. … It also promotes negative stereotypes about the competency of minority Americans by making it seem like they need special treatment.”