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We may be praising Indian-American actress Mindy Kaling for breaking barriers as a woman of color in Hollywood, but it’s her older and estranged brother’s antics that has many shaking their heads.

Vijay Chokal-Ingam made headlines last week after he claimed he posed as an African-American man to get into medical school back in 1998 and 1999.

Citing affirmative action, Chokal-Ingam said that when he first applied to schools, he was wait-listed. Deciding to undergo a transformation, which included shaving his head, trimming his “long Indian eyelashes,” and going by his middle name, JoJo, Chokal received admission to Columbia University and Cornell University, to name a few. He went on to attend St. Louis University Medical School, although he dropped out two years later.

The confession will be detailed in Chokal-Ingam’s upcoming book, Almost Black, according to BuzzFeed. On a website for the book, Chokal-Ingam mentions that he didn’t have the grades to get into medical school, but had to figure out a way by any means necessary.

Chokalingam writes that he realized when he was a junior at the University of Chicago he didn’t have the grades or the MCAT score to get into medical school.

According to Chokalingam, he had a GPA of 3.1 and a score of 31 on the MCAT, which ranks in the 80–85 percentile for the test.

“Still, I was determined to become a doctor and I knew that admission standards for certain minorities under affirmative action were, let’s say… less stringent?” he writes.

“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. Vijay the Indian-American frat boy become Jojo the African American Affirmative Action applicant to medical school.”

Obviously, being a Black man came with challenges.

“Not everything worked out as planned. Cops harassed me. Store clerks accused me of shoplifting. Women were either scared of me or couldn’t keep their hands off me. What started as a devious ploy to gain admission to medical school turned into twisted social experiment.”

But sadly, that didn’t stop JoJo from appropriating an identity for his benefit. He took to Twitter to defend his actions, posting screenshots of his acceptance letters in the process.

Chokal-Ingam, who said he is writing the book to “show my opposition to affirmative action discrimination, specifically at my alma mater UCLA but in the American education system in general,” mentioned that his sister will surely be upset with his latest admission.

“I love my sister to death,” Chokal-Ingam told the New York Post. “She says this will bring shame on the family.”

Do you agree that Chokal-Ingam’s stunt is problematic? Sound off below…

SOURCE: Buzzfeed, Almost Black, New York Post | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

Mindy Kaling’s Brother Claims He Got Accepted To Med School By Posing As Black Man  was originally published on newsone.com