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’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 — this time as a black man.
He says — and, to judge from his before and after photos, there’s no doubt about it — his “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. Vijay the Indian-American frat boy become Jojo the African American Affirmative Action applicant to medical school.”
The experience prompted him to write a book called Almost Black – The True Story Of An Indian American Who Got Into Medical School Pretending To Be An African American, and you may read more about it here on his website.
Gotta feel pity now for the poor black students, who cannot be seen to become too successful lest they be accused of acting Asian.
Right!