In a story elucidating the failings of Affirmative Action, an Indian man who was unable to get accepted into medical school with a 3.1 GPA found success after transforming himself into a black man.
Vijay Chokal-Ingam, brother of now estranged actress/comedian Mindy Kaling, wanted nothing more than to be a doctor back in 1998 but had been rejected by 11 prestigious medical schools until he became ‘Jojo’ the African-American candidate. ‘JoJo’ continued his schooling for 2 years but quit after seeing his Indian friends getting rejected that had higher GPAs.
Vijay is set to publish a book soon on his experience.
He explains on his blog how he prepared:
“So, I shaved my head, trimmed my long Indian eyelashes, and applied to medical school as a black man. My change in appearance was so startling that my own fraternity brothers didn’t recognize me at first.
I even joined the Organization of Black Students and started using my embarrassing middle name that I had hidden from all of my friends since I was a 9 years old.”
It worked. He was accepted into St. Louis University School of Medicine:
Chokal-Ignam, who ultimately did not become a doctor, made his feelings about affirmative action clear in a recent tweet:
In an interview with The College Fix, author and University of Michigan professor Carl Cohen agrees and says affirmative action is “damaging for blacks and other minorities”:
“The philosophical justification of democracy rests upon the conviction that all members of some community are equal. In a democracy any preference for a racial group is intolerable.”
Cohen continues:
“Affirmative action has many forms. It can be honorable and right. When it takes the form of outright preference, it is morally wrong and deeply unwise. If preference is what is meant by affirmative action, it should be scrapped entirely, for sure.”
His solution:
“To bolster admission rates we need to provide the education – especially early childhood education!
That will enable minority applicants to succeed on their own merits.”
People Magazine reports that the actress and her brother are estranged. Mindy Kaling has not commented on Chokal-Ingam’s affirmative action application plan.
9/10 of you people commenting have zero college education let alone a degree of any type.
Do we forget about the millions of native Americans murdered for their land? You’re living on stolen land. Give it back to the native Americans and not just the small reserves.
Nothing new.
Med school with a 3.1 GPA? Id say he didn’t get in because of that. Now he’s gonna try and capitalize with a book?!? God bless America
The only problem I see with affirmative action is that it perpetuates the notion that black people are generally inferior to other races. It treats black people as though they are the little boy on the big boy court who needs to be allowed to take open shots. There are also many black kids with a 4.0 GPA who aren’t accepted into a school because that schools has already met its quota of black students. What people don’t understand is that there needs to be a certain percentage of each race of students at each school, a percentage that closely resembles the racial makeup of the US. Schools often times look to meet their quota before actually considering each student. Ideally, the best candidate would be accepted–changing the racial makeup of the school population every few years.
Also, black privilege is not a thing. Affirmative action is a policy that seeks to favor members of a disadvantaged group. It cannot legitimately hurt white/non-black candidates because they are not competing with the black candidate in the first place. White candidates are competing with other white candidates; black candidates are competing with other black candidates; Asians, Native Americans, Indians, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics are competing against their own race. It is possible that Vijay barely missed the cut for the bottom of the accepted Indian student group by .1 GPA, but barely made it as the least auspicious accepted student of the black group.
You should research the Barbary Slave Trade, your ancestors may have owned some of my ancestors. Yes African Muslims owned white Europeans add slaves.
Also, blacks were sold into slavery by guess who, other blacks and slavery is still going on in Africa. You should be happy that you have a better opportunity here than in Africa.
Ultimate price, doubt his ancestors where wearing blue fighting at Gettysburg right after they got off the boat but what would I know
That’s not the first time that happen, been going for decades….
pays to be brown and of color…plus you don’t have to tan.