Message from Clay Dube

[clay dube]

Sarah focuses on an important issue. We've twice visited a human rights museum located in an office building in Osaka. It's located in what was a burakumin district. Exhibits document the segregation of people and discrimination that has continued despite legal prohibitions on such status distinctions. Not surprising, Americans find discrimination that wasn't rooted in race/ethnicity hard to fathom.

Please look in the Asia in My Classroom forum for posts on how Google, libraries, and museums are wrestling with the question of publishing maps which show "outcast" districts. Check on the thread on teaching about contemporary Japan.

Here's a Japan Times column on ongoing discrimination, including hate speak on the web:
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090120zg.html