Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democratic Senate nominee, grew up in an affluent suburb of Detroit. AdvertisementBy the time El-Sayed graduated from the local high school, well over 95% of his classmates were also headed to college. After receiving a full scholarship to the University of Michigan Medical School, El-Sayed won a Rhodes Scholarship, a prestigious academic award named after Cecil Rhodes, a diamond mining magnate and champion of the British Empire. Born into a society of unprecedented wealth built on American work ethic, capitalistic imagination, Christian ethical and communal norms, and liberal freedoms, El-Sayed won the generational lottery. In his commencement speech at Michigan, El-Sayed claimed that one of the hallmarks of the "American dream" was an "audacity to believe we can change this world."