Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Untouchables


"The Burakumin are Japan’s untouchable class... Burakumin are meat and leather handlers, and when Japan converted to Buddhism, with its vegetarian code, in the eighth century, these workers became outcasts. Their profession was considered dirty, and they were deemed 'polluted people.'... Pornographers, creating a product that is widely consumed by society, face a similarly paradoxical ostracism..." -- Evan Wright