I did not mean to marginalize anyone, simply to share my own experience and the experience of many others. Our experiences are also valid.

Racism and discrimination absolutely do exist, but not every bad experience is due to racism. Anyone who has been to a competitive school such as MIT or Brown or Stanford has had to go through the gauntlet. In fact, nicknames we had for MIT were things like “The Big Screw” … this was the experience of EVERYONE who went there, no matter what their skin color. If anything, black and Hispanic students at MIT had extra help from the administration. There were special programs specifically targeted for them.

I took the writer seriously enough to re-read her piece to make sure I did not miss anything. As I said, ANYONE who applies to medical school will find that there are standards they are expected to meet. That is because we want only the most qualified people as doctors. If we lowered standards, more people of all races would die. This would be a bad thing.

As an engineer, I also faced standards, because the last thing you want is, for example, a Civil Engineer who designs a bridge that fails. That could end up killing lots of people.

When it comes to real world metrics, race doesn’t matter. The best lab partner I had at MIT was a black guy. He was quiet, calm and amazingly competent. If some idiot refused to hire him due to his skin color, it would be the idiot’s loss. This black engineer rose to the top of his field.

In the field of medicine, we have people like Ben Carson. His story is an inspiration to anyone, of any color.

What bothers me is that the left has denigrated a decent human being like Dr. Carson due to his political affiliation. Yet his story — raised by a single mother and going on to make pioneering breakthroughs in medicine — is pure inspiration for anyone, of any color.

Anyway, I will read the Atlantic article you shared.