{"id":3457,"date":"2015-04-04T14:53:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-04T20:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2015-04-04T14:53:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-04T20:53:22","slug":"almost-black-a-story-of-affirmative-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/2015\/04\/almost-black-a-story-of-affirmative-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost Black: A Story of Affirmative Action"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_3460\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3460\" style=\"width: 623px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-04-at-2.33.42-PM1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-04-at-2.33.42-PM1.png\" alt=\"Same man: Vijay Chokal-Ingam, before and after\" width=\"623\" height=\"235\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3460\" srcset=\"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-04-at-2.33.42-PM1.png 623w, http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Screen-Shot-2015-04-04-at-2.33.42-PM1-300x113.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 623px) 100vw, 623px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3460\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Same man: Vijay Chokal-Ingam, before and after<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This is an ostensibly true story.<\/p>\n<p>Vijay Jojo Chokalingam, an East Indian (pictured above, before and after), wanted to become a doctor. But he didn&#8217;t have the GPA or the test scores. And so he shaved his head and trimmed his  eyelashes. Then he (re)applied to medical school &#8212; this time as a black man. <\/p>\n<p>He says &#8212; and, to judge from his before and after photos, there&#8217;s no doubt about it &#8212; his &#8220;change in appearance was so startling that my own fraternity brothers didn\u2019t 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. Vijay the Indian-American frat boy become Jojo the African American Affirmative Action applicant to medical school.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The experience prompted him to write a book called <em>Almost Black \u2013 The True Story Of An Indian American Who Got Into Medical School Pretending To Be An African American<\/em>, and you may read more about it here on <a href=\"http:\/\/almostblack.com\/the-book\/\">his website<\/a>.<br \/>\n<\/br><br \/>\n<\/br><br \/>\n<\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is an ostensibly true story. Vijay Jojo Chokalingam, an East Indian (pictured above, before and after), wanted to become a doctor. But he didn&#8217;t have the GPA or the test scores. And so he shaved his head and trimmed his eyelashes. Then he (re)applied to medical school &#8212; this time as a black man. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/2015\/04\/almost-black-a-story-of-affirmative-action\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Almost Black: A Story of Affirmative Action&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[2549],"tags":[2551,2553,2555,2554,2552,2556,2550],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rayharvey.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}