A few days ago, a friend recommended that I read an article in the 8th of July edition of The Weekly Post, which I rarely see. It was an article regarding Buraku discrimination. I thought it was a gossip article with no basis in the Buraku Liberation Movement or the Dowa measure, but it was not. The headline was “Osaka City Officials’ ‘Buraku Discriminatory Remarks’ Sealed Off”. That was referring to an incident in which two employees of the Osaka Port Authority’s Equipment Division had repeatedly made discriminatory remarks about their colleagues. I had already heard about this story, but here were the exactly details. Well done, Weekly Post!

According to the article, over a period of three days from 18 March onwards, two Port Authority equipment section employees made dozens of discriminatory remarks against coworker from Buraku. A supervisor did not correct him, but rather made discriminatory remarks that encouraged him. Despite the assumed privacy of riding in a car, everything they said and did was well recorded on the on-board drive recorder.

Normally, when a discriminatory word is used, e.g. the word eta, intention is carefully determined in context. However, in this case, that procedure can be omitted. This is because the person shouted “Do-etta” 75 times and clearly said, “I love discrimination, don’t you?” (Do emphasizes the worst discriminatory term eta more, and etta also pokes fun of eta). They are talking happily, even though they have self-exposed their sense of discrimination as their habitus, and even though they know that their comments are so malicious that they will “have to undergo human rights training” if they are brought to light. The city of Osaka, controlled by the Osaka Ishin no Kai, has not made this incident public for more than two months and appears not to have disclosed the entire content of the statements. They do not want to acknowledge the existence of Buraku discrimination.

I consider that this discrimination incident completely contradicts the National Integration Theory identifying of Buraku discrimination as a phenomenon in the process of dissolution. At the same time, I reaffirm how sterile the ‘theory’ invented by Keiichi Fujita of ‘transcending from both sides’ was, and the invalidity of the argument of Michihiko Noguchi, Kōhsuke Yagi and Kokichirō Miura that the Buraku are understood as a ‘relational category’ because they exist in human relations.

I believe that a full investigation of this incident will make the reality of discrimination exists more apparent.