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MCS 101 final essay grading rubric Content Total Demonstrates mastery of the text /25 Uses evidence from class to make arguments 125 Accuracy of information /10 Depth and breadth of information /10 Writing Total Clear thesis statement /10 Writing style, syntax, and organization /10 Spelling and grammar 15 Within page limits (4-6) 15 Total Score Attach this file to the front of your final essay. 2 Points will be deducted from your grade if you do not follow this procedure. Meeting deadlines is important. Late papers will not be accepted without a reasonable and documented excused absence.
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Running head: THE COOK UP: A STORY OF ADVERSITY AND TRIUMPH

The Cook Up: A Story of Adversity and Triumph
Name
Institution

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THE COOK UP: A STORY OF ADVERSITY AND TRIUMPH

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The Cook Up: A Story of Adversity and Triumph

Introduction

The story is the same for every poor person everywhere. Life left me with no option that
why I did what I did since a man has to do what he has to do to survive. While no one disputed
doing what has been done is one of the greatest attributes of man, everyone has an option to do
the right thing when faced with a difficult. There is no doubt that when one is faced with life and
death situation that the option to do the right might not present itself, the most important with life
choices is that one either chooses right or wrong. The concept of morality and ethics are two
separate but yet related concepts that are used to evaluate the behavior or actions of people. In
most instances, they are the compass used for guiding the thought process behind human actions.
They are the mirror the reflect images that a person sees when he or she is about to do something
right or wrong. As the saying goes easier said than done is the reality of life. Anyway, the
concept of morality and ethics that define the reason for actions are not the focus of this essay
but rather the approaches that are used by people to turn adversity into triumphs. D. Watkins’s
memoir, The Cook Up is not just a story of drugs, race, and class and how they in tandem to limit
the chances of young African-American men and women living in the poor neighborhoods of the
United States but an inspiring tale of the methods and ways that can be to changes the fortunes of
an individual from bad to worse. It is the self-help book that not only provided means to
redemption from evil to good but one that reflects the reality that ethnic minorities deal with in a
society with systems that are designed to make them fail.

THE COOK UP: A STORY OF ADVERSITY AND TRIUMPH

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The Beginning of the End for D. Watkins
D. Watkins did not choose life as a drug dealer while growing up in East Baltimore. He
was protected from the misery that most people living in his neighborhood experienced every
day by Bip, his older brother. As a successful drug dealer in the area, the older Watkins ensured
that his younger brother was not involved in his criminal activity but giving all that he needed to
be a good student and well-behaved child. According to Watkins (2016), “I was not like most

of the black students that felt like they were in ‘a Gap commercial’ in colleges because unlike
them that were trying on middle-class whiteness and wore pastels and calling each other dude, I
was wearing Gucci sweat suits and $15,000 worth of jewelry while playing dice in the athletic
center. Bip not only made that happen but kept his brother straight by buying expensive items for
getting good grades in school and teaching him Frederick Douglas and other important AfricanAmerican personalities.
Meanwhile, the cruel blow that life deals every individual was about to hit Watkins
before he started his college education at College Part in Georgetown. While celebrating his
admission into a college, he received the sad news that Bip had been shot and was lying dead on
the street. Although he wanted his elder brother and benefactor to get up, he laid lifeless on the
street of their neighborhood. This incident was the beginning of the end for the young Watkins.
He dropped out of college and set up his drug dealing crew and sold drugs for four years. What
started as small drug business in the kitchen of the only place Watkins can call home became an
empire that made him “ridiculous amount of money.” Rather than continue his illicit drug
business into old age since he was successful at it, Watkins decided one day that he had enough
and went back to college to complete his education since according to him; he liked to read and
think.

THE COOK UP: A STORY OF ADVERSITY AND TRIUMPH

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Watkins’s journey to success is not different from those traveled by people from most
ethnic minority groups that lived in the kind of neighborhood he grew up and still lives. It is just
that he took a different path, which did not require him to accept a fate that emanated from the
belief that the system that they believed did not care about them. Racial discrimination in the
form of prejudice, stereotype, and profiling are issues that ethnic minorities including AfricaAmericans and Latinos daily in the United States. It is an only problem that has prevented the
nations from moving past the experiences of its slave era. Also, it is the reason why people fail to
trust each other, especially when one is from the dominant ethnic that the minorities consider the
perpetrators of racism.
In spite of the highly diverse nature of the people of the United States that has created a
scenario where there would be no dominant ethnic group by the year 2050, racial stereotype and
prejudice is still a major social problem. The situation has gotten to the extent that law
enforcement officers that are deployed to the kind of neighborhood that Watkins grew up are
prone to aggression and use of lethal force in the delivery of their duties. Although this
approached is not encouraged by their various agencies in the country, most officers feel the
need to protect lives necessitated such actions. The gap in the income level between the rich and
poor members of the society would take awhile to be fully closed. One of the reasons for this
assertion is that while African-Americans believe black lives matter in the same way as those of
Caucasians, white police officers hold the viewpoint that they are dangerous and should be
handled with force.
The environment that this type of issues exists is the one that Watkins lived most of his
life and chose to become of its few success stories. Rather than continue with the luxurious
lifestyle that was financed with the poison sold to his people, he flipped his life like a coin and

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returned to college to complete his education and the journey that was started by his older
brother. The triumph over adversity began in his introductory writing class when he was
introduced to the literary works of Langston Hughes; Michael Eric Dyson, and Sister Souljah
three writers that he claimed changed his life forever. The inference from the decision to leave
the life of drugs and crime is that humans are faced with a decision to either to take the long,
difficult road to success or the short one filled with social ills. He chose the former and went
ahead to earn a bachelor and masters degree in education and wrote essays for The New York
Times, The Guardian, and Rolling Stone.

The Effect of Systemic Racism According to Watkins
The racial stereotype is a social problem that is impacting members of the ethnic minority
group negatively. The challenge with the problem is that the actors are either unaware of their
actions or are deliberately doing as part of their oppressive tendencies. According to Watkins
(2016), this treatment was something he experienced several times while growing up in East
Baltimore and is the reason why many of the children in that poor neighborhood and many others
across the country are turning to a life of drugs and crimes. The complicated nature of racial
stereotypes that Watkins addressed in The Cook Up is one that featured in the many works of
James Baldwin including Letter From a Region in My Mind. In this exceptional material on the
issues of racial tension in the United States, Baldwin stated that “to accept one’s past - one’s
history - is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it,” as a message to the
young African Americans living in Baltimore at the time (Baldwin & Danticat, 2016).
Furthermore, discussions about racial disparities in the United States are one that Watkins
used his memoir to lend a voice to since it is an issue that required a different approach than the

THE COOK UP: A STORY OF ADVERSITY AND TRIUMPH

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current ones that are used on either side of the problem. For example, the act of kindness that the
drugs dealers engage in their communities might be noble to them and the people that benefit
from them, but the truth is that they are part of crimes that are ruining the lives of their people
and creating tension in the society that has made others label that as aggressive and a threat to
others. Therefore, those on the other side continue to use the methods such as brutality and lethal
force to transform the behavior of the people that endangering their lives.
As a matter of fact, the issue of racial disparities and stereotype is so deep rooted in the
system that even the emergence of a black president failed to address its many problems.
However, Watkins believes that writers can use their work to succeed where presidents fail. He
knows from experience that image of a crack dealer is one that most people do not want to be
labeled with but chose to have due to the peculiarities of their situation. Watkins in one of the
paragraphs in the books explained this in concise way when he wrote that the motivation for
people that hustle on the street dealing drug is “because only drug dealers and the top 1 percent
of Americans can afford to push a cart through Who...


Anonymous
Really great stuff, couldn't ask for more.

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