Hey everyone, before we get started with this week's episode, just a quick reminder.

On Tuesday, March 27th, at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time, 6.30 a.m. Pacific time, I'll be doing an

AMA, or Ask Me Anything, sponsored by What Pods?

If you've never heard of an AMA before, basically this is your chance to ask me pretty much

anything and I'll be answering more or less in real time for about an hour and a half starting

at 930.

I'll provide the link to submit questions in advance if you don't want to get up at that

ungodly hour in both the show notes for this episode and on the web page. So submit some stuff. Check it

out. I think it'll be really interesting. I've never done something like it before. Let's try

it together and see how it goes. That's all. Enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 233, A People Apart.

Today I want to talk about one of those subjects that, for whatever reason, tends to get

a footnote treatment in discussions of Japanese history and culture.

What I mean by that is that almost every book or documentary or what have you covering Japan

will mention this phenomenon,

say more or less the same list of facts about it, and then move on.

It is ubiquitous both in its inclusion and the relative triviality of that inclusion.

Why that is, I can only speculate, but today it's time to give more than a footnotes worth of treatment

to the Burakumin.

More or less every discussion of Burakaman, and I am guilty of this myself, tends to hit

on the same basic points.

First, that they were a social class formally organized during the Edo period to do menial or unpleasant work,

working as tanners, butchers, executioners, that kind of thing.

...