I was once recommended by a gentleman (called the sponsor) as a prospective member of a certain charitable society as a 'good professional businessperson.' I filled all requirements. I shared the founding Puritan principles of fairness and diligence. However, another member refused me because my name was on a 'blacklist,' and I was from ‘a slightly scary world.’ As a result, my nomination was shelved.

As a businessman, I imagined the 'blacklist' to be a list of people officially recognized and recorded by financial institutions as being in default to bankruptcy. My sponsor also understood it as such. But I had no bank loans or debts of any kind. There was no way I could be on the 'blacklist.' My family had a no-borrowing policy.

The point of membership was to confirm their self-identification as luminaries, not only as outstanding businesspeople, but also as individuals, endowed with economic, cultural and often academic capital. It did not seem to have much to do with Puritanism's views of equality. Noh, Kyōgen and Chadō were their standard hobbies. Some negative comments about that organization from outside were heard, but they were inverted expressions of envy. It was therefore important for members to decide whom to welcome as new members. As I later learnt, they saw the Burakumin as the destroyer of their cultural world. This was because they saw the BLM as thoroughly destroying their traditions, including their own hobbies. Their taste for luxury, even if they engaged with a 'dirty' business, reproduced their self-perceived (traditional) excellence. Hence, on the one hand, to protect themselves from their rowdy counterparts, they believed themselves to be superior, and on the other hand, in Jock Young fashion, they demonized Burakumin as inherently evil, stupid and criminal, i.e. as beings to be blacklisted. It could be imagined that the mechanism was activated on me as an example of all Burakumin.

I asked them, through that sponsoring gentleman, to tell me which blacklist I was listed on, but no one could answer. This is because no such thing exists. In the end, because they remained silent, I decided to join an organization that fights discrimination.