Darryl Hunts Case Study

While some cultures contain more heterogeneous populations, involving many different races together, others have only a few. No matter the racial makeup, each culture and society contains a majority race and other minority races. Anthropologists study these cultures to understand how the people live, interact and treat one another. One of the areas of focus within this field is when majority populations discriminate against other groups. One of the major areas of focus has been the interaction between African-Americans and the majority American population descended from Europeans. Anthropologists study racial discrimination because it has continued to be a very significant part of American culture. They look at this problem to gain an understanding

Even in court rooms today, there are incidences of unfair treatment of African Americans. Many cases occur with unexperienced public defenders assigned to poor African American clients. As if not bad enough, juries are sometimes composed of an imbalanced mix of races.In Darryl Hunts case, both times that he was in the court room trying to prove his innocence, the juries were entirely composed of white people. This is an unlikely coincidence, due to the fact that the case took place in a racially charged area of North Carolina. While the judicial system strives for unbiased justice, the jurors are often influenced by incorrect or racist sentiments. Some still believe in a culture where descendants of European cultures are supreme to other races and when something bad occurs involving one of their own against a person of a different color, then it is immediately and definitely, regardless of the numerous amounts of evidence, his fault. Anthropologist view this as a problem with the beliefs in the culture. Mainstream culture has attempted to condition all people to believe that white americans are the same and equal to black americans. People are also told with documents and events that the discrimination can no longer exist, but it is still of the culture of some to believe the opposite. Anthropologist see this racial discrimination and try to put an end to

Corruption within the prison walls causes problems for the prisoners inside. Guards and officers hold substantial power over the prisoners and since they are incarcerated, the world has written them off, and much of the discretion necessary for officers in the outside world is disregarded. Looking at Darryl Hunt’s 19 years in jail, he had to deal with the hatred brought about by the connotation of his crime. To the guards and even the other prisoners, he represented the worst type of criminal and that, coupled with his ethnicity made his life in prison very difficult. The “skinhead” prisoners felt the need to seek their own means of justice for Darryl’s perceived crime. They would leave notes on his bed when he was gone saying not to go to sleep or shower alone because he would be killed. It was even worse when the guards would write up contracts with the skinheads saying that they would bring them more dope if they killed Darryl. This is a very difficult situation because the prisoners have very few rights and little choice of action when guards or other prisoners treat them badly. It is within the culture for prisons to be such a problem because we are putting the many problems of the outside in the same confined area. The guards are able to express their feelings towards certain races without consequence because few are concerned with the prisoners feelings or well