Deadlock Victim

Outcast Caste?

I was reading the paper the other day, rare occurrence I know, and I came across something a little startling. It was an article entitled "Japanese bias against 'outcasts' still lingers'. The article started by relating a story of a young woman who was thrown out of her boyfriend's family home on the event of announcing their engagement. The cause of the stir was her background her family came from the burakumin caste. I read on and the gave some more background on the burakumin. They were the lowest caste in the hierarchy of feudal Japan, relegated to jobs such as grave digging and chopping meat. They were even made to live separately from the other castes, even today their communities still exist. This background is readily available to employers and families, anyone who wishes to look it up. And as proven by the opening story, it can cause families to break up, and other cases it can cost people job opportunities. In the feudal periods they were known as filth, or non-human, forced apart from the other castes of warriors, artisans, farmers, and merchants.

I found it disturbing that, in this day and age, bigotry like that still exists. The article also mentioned that this burakumin discrimination is hard to understand outside of Japan. That got me to thinking, I don't think it is that hard to understand, I don't want to believe it exists and I do not endorse or practice it in anyway, a similar form of discrimination exists right here in America. It reminded my of the discrimination that exists against minorities to this day across the country. In order for our individual, as well as the world, community has to get over these biases in order to grow as a community. The caste system has been abolished for over 100 years, yet the feelings still exist for a lot of people. I know that this does not apply to a lot of people, hopefully the majority, but for those that do cling to these beliefs I have to ask why? Why discriminate? How have these people offended you? We are all members of the same species, we are all human beings, and as such deserve to be respected by all.

This is idealistic, but that is what we need to strive for. There is no place for hate, this applies to more than these discrimination cases, but to all parts of the world. I don't want to sound all preachy or anything, but we need to put the past behind us and work for a better future.

I was just a little shocked to open the paper and read that. I had been aware of the old caste system, but had been unaware of these so-called 'untouchables.' Maybe I was blind not to realize that caste like that would exist, maybe that is a lot of people's problems....

posted by Chris @ 8:23 PM