The relative price of rice in January 2024 was JPY 25,927/60 kg bag of brown rice, more than double the price in January 2021, which was JPY 12,804. Rising prices of meat and vegetables, as well as processed foods, have also been ruthless. Meanwhile, according to the 2023 National Survey of Living Standards, the average household income in 2022 was JPY 5.242 million, a decrease of 3.9% from the previous year and a continuation from 2021. Households headed by elderly citizens had a household income of JPY 3,049,000, a decrease of 4.2% from the previous year. This is the reason why citizens are said to be living in very difficult circumstances.

However, when I hear these income figures, I wonder which Japan is being described. The economic situation in which the Burakumin I know are forced to live is far below the life of this suffering Japanese people. According to a survey of Burakumin’s life circumstances by the BLL Hiroshima Prefectural Federation, 56.3% of households have an annual income of less than 3 million yen. Some 36.1% of households have an annual income of less than 2 million yen. I have never heard of any increase in their annual income. Of course, there are poor people among the non-Burakumin population. To illustrate, 22% of households have an annual income of less than 3 million yen, and 8.4% have an annual income of less than 2 million yen. I am not boasting about our poverty. I am concerned about their silence on poverty and on the current hardships of life.

I am now recalling the rice riots of 1918. While the army shot citizens downs with bullets, the police put them down with the fales allegation that most rioters were Burakumin. It is frightening to think that the slander persists over a hundred years later, and still poison relations between Burakumin and non-Burakumin. Multiple generations have inherited misdirected blame and trauma. It would not be surprising if underneath Buraku silene there was simmering anger.