"I went to Yale, my brother went to prison" - Illustration for the Atlantic (2019)

A personal essay from a black student from Oakland named Akintunde Ahmad, spotlighted on The Ellen Degeneres Show for his successes (he was accepted into many Ivy League schools and chose Yale), while his brother Azeem was in jail, after being charged despite his innocence. Azeem will struggle with a felony record for the rest of his life while Akintunde will not. But Akintunde argues that the two had nearly parallel lives and that his "exceptional" story should not be as rare as it is. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/09/i-went-yale-my-brother-went-prison/597730/