
Why I faked being black for med school - dudul
http://nypost.com/2015/04/12/mindy-kalings-brother-explains-why-he-pretended-to-be-black/
======
taeric
I don't understand the point of these style articles. If you were to look at
the ridiculous volume of black people that were basically forced to pass as
white _in order to live,_ that really robs this story of its bite.

So, yes. Some people today can abuse the system for advantage. The system this
was built to counterbalance was far far worse. And... I question whether it
has actually been fully dismantled, yet.

~~~
invisible_dust
Anything that is not equality based is morally offensive. There should be no
racial advantage to getting into college because that in itself is racist.

~~~
task_queue
A classic case of "the real racists are the ones who mention race."

To address the real problems of continued systemic racism that existed from
the founding of our country, we cannot simply put our race blinders on and
pretend we're a post racial society.

You're ignoring that there are inherent racial advantages in admissions
already.

It is morally offensive that, as a society, we've proven to be unwavering in
our racism until we are forced to address it.

------
liquidcool
Friend of mine who was born in the 1940s remarked that due to rampant
discrimination, when he was growing up the smart people who weren't racist
went to black doctors, since it was so much harder to become one.

A great example of the racial divide is the 1967 film _Guess Who 's Coming to
Dinner?_ In it, two parents are concerned for their daughter's happiness as
she introduces them to her fiance, played by Sidney Poitier. He's not just a
smart, charming doctor - he's the head of the freaking World Health
Organization! And they're worried about what a rough time they're going to
have as couple!

~~~
yummyfajitas
By the same logic, the smart people today who aren't racist will go to Asian
doctors.

~~~
meira
Or to the black doctors.

~~~
yummyfajitas
You missed the point. In 1940, black doctors were held to a higher standard
than white ones, and would therefore be better on average than white ones. So
a non-racist person (i.e., a person who only cares about the quality of care
he receives) should seek out a black doctor specifically.

Apply appropriate substitutions for 2015.

~~~
meira
Ok, but it is still valid today. It didn't become easy for a black person to
be a doctor.

------
k-mcgrady
So the author cheated the system, cheated someone else out of a place - and
then decided a couple of years down the line he didn't want it anyway. I knew
going into reading that I was going to come away thinking the guy was a dick
but he's an even bigger dick than I suspected.

~~~
ajkjk
Hm, that's pretty unfair criticism. Lots of people leave med school for lots
of reasons. It would have been hard for him to know he was going to do that at
the time he was applying.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Of course, dropping out isn't the issue. It's that he cheated to take that
place from someone and the fact he didn't even use it just makes it seem
worse.

------
dataker
I have experienced something similar between Latino and White.

Although I was born and raised in Latin America, my parents are Europeans, so
I'm seen as white in the U.S.

Whenever I apply to something, there's a quasi-existential dilemma created by
such racial division.

------
chasing
I like how his current business is literally gaming the system for wealthy
students so they'll get an unearned edge over the competition.

Heaven forbid there should be systems in place to help counter-balance that.

------
SG-
This story reminds of me this 1986 movie called "Soul Man":

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVtsvIpJFTw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVtsvIpJFTw)

------
meira
Disgusting.

------
zxcvcxz
Isn't discrimination racism? It's strange we live in a world where you have to
discriminate to not be racist and those of us who are against discrimination
are the racist ones.

~~~
chasing
Just because something takes race into account doesn't make it automatically
racist.

~~~
zxcvcxz
So would taking race into account and accepting them into a program based on
race be racist?

What if a restaurant charged some races more and some races less for the same
food?

~~~
chasing
So the goal of affirmative action is to help provide a little balance. There
are plenty of ways to be disadvantaged in our society, but our country has a
long history of disadvantaging black people in particular. So race-based
affirmative action is one (admittedly imperfect) way of bringing education to
a class of people who might otherwise miss out.

It's imperfect. There's no getting around that. But it's not racist. It is an
attempt to compensate for existing racial biases and historical inequities.

------
gkop
Affirmative action is bad because jerks like the author will do totally
unethical things to abuse it, and the same jerks will be resentful of other
minorities that affirmative action helps? If this is the best he can come up
with arguing against affirmative action, well maybe affirmative action is
actually ok.

~~~
DanBlake
I would argue the problem with AA is not that people might abuse it, but
because its a fundamentally flawed system that starts to prefer certain races
to one another. For instance, asians are definitely a minority in the US but
are _extremely_ heavily discriminated against when applying to colleges. There
is even a lawsuit against harvard right now that shows how harvard denied many
asian students in favor of other minority's.

So, thats one issue with AA. The other is simply that fields like medicine
should have only the best of the best getting through. Why should a native
american kid who did shitty all through high school get to go to med school
and a asian kid who got a perfect 4.0 and did extra curricular things not.
This is making america worse and in many cases further pushes a racial divide
agenda that says "minority's cant hack it in the real world".

What is worrying is that the truly great minority leaders/thinking/doers/etc..
will have their accomplishments completely invalidated by their non-minority
peers for thinking they got to where they are just because of their racial
makeup.

Just to see the above in action, look at this reddit thread :
[https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/2zun6p/accepted_int...](https://www.reddit.com/r/premed/comments/2zun6p/accepted_into_medical_school/)

~~~
dasil003
Of course AA is flawed, but the status quo is flawed too. That's the point of
AA. It's supposed to be a counter weight to structural imbalances in order to
let minorities get a foot in the door with the hopes that in the future it
will not be necessary.

Note that I'm not claiming that AA works or is for the best, I really don't
know. But just that you can't have this discussion honestly without
acknowledging that there are subconscious biases working against certain
groups of people. The whole basis of Maddox's quote assumes that people are
objective and have no biases—that's a myth, just like the idea that all
players in an economy have perfect information and are rational.

This is where the whole "check your privilege" thing comes in. From one white
man to another, we are not qualified to judge how much hard work and talent is
required for a woman or a black person to succeed and be recognized.

~~~
jnbiche
Of course there are biases against minorities. It's a big problem,
particularly with respect to police violence.

However, if you want to completely derail a reasonable discussion with a white
male, just use that phrase: "check your privilege".

It'll work every time, guaranteed.

I'm open to listening to reasonable arguments for or against AA, but I'm not
going to be told "check your privilege" by anyone and continue to take them
seriously; "check your privilege" is a phrase which erases the individual and
invalidates any personal struggles they may have gone through (extreme
poverty, abuse, disability, learning disability, etc.).

Even by itself, "privilege" is a really terrible, loaded word. People like
George Bush are privileged -- most white people are not.

~~~
task_queue
> extreme poverty, abuse, disability,

This was me and, in America, I am still more privileged than a black person in
my position when it comes to education, loans, work, law enforcement and
discrimination in general.

~~~
tsotha
You have no way of knowing whether or not this is true.

The way people come to the conclusion it's harder for black people to get
loans is to throw out all the traditional lending criteria like credit
history, income, and assets.

~~~
task_queue
I[0] don't[1]? [2]

[3] [4]

[5]

\--

[0] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-
business/bla...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/on-small-
business/black-hispanic-entrepreneurs-discriminated-against-when-seeking-
small-business-
loans/2014/06/03/70059184-ea86-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html)

[1] [http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/05/27/blacks-
leas...](http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2015/05/27/blacks-least-likely-
to-get-business-loan-from-banks/)

[2]
[http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/nyregion/15subprime.html?e...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/nyregion/15subprime.html?ex=1350187200&en=a9978e04a9864642&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)

[3] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/minorities-more-
lik...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/01/minorities-more-likely-
to_n_306870.html)

[4] [http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/02/09/Study-shows-its-
mo...](http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2015/02/09/Study-shows-its-more-
difficult-for-black-Americans-to-get-a-mortgage-loan-than-other-
groups/2731423533198/)

[5] [http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/local/well-
off-b...](http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/news/local/well-off-blacks-
denied-loans-more-than-low-incom-1/nNBwY/) dayton specific

~~~
tsotha
Nope. Like I said. You can only get there by ignoring lending standards.

EDIT: Did you even read the links you posted, or did you just do a quick
Google search and copy links without reading?

