"Ernest Schaal" <eschaal@max.hi-ho.ne.jp> wrote in message
news:BE645542.DB76%eschaal@max.hi-ho.ne.jp...
> in article d1l4ku$8oq$1@nwall1.odn.ne.jp, bitter anko at anko@eater.com
> wrote on 3/21/05 9:28 AM:
>
> > Burakumins are well-known snobbish people, the newly rich class.
Actually,
> > Etas were rich in the Tokugawa period because they had a monopoly of
selling
> > leathers and some other products. But while some Etas get poor after
their
> > monopoly was confiscated by the Meiji restoration, as the samurai
privileges
> > were confiscated, many of them got more richer because of the Japanese
> > started to eat meat. The more market for them expanded.
> >
> > And now, those you are saying as poor burakumins are actually not
> > burakumins. At least in Kansai, they are well known fake
> > burakumins(so-called "ese-dowa") who want to get all those welfares from
> > government. Many of them are Koreans.
>
> Next he will be telling us that the problem in India is that the
> "untouchables" have all the money.

Burakumins are very different from those "untouchables" in India. Burakumins
had the monopoly and privileges while they were discriminated against from
ordinary civilians. They were more like merchants actually. Merchant class
people were also discriminated against from agricultural people and
samurais, but merchants were rich.  It was a carrot-and-stick policy of the
Tokugawa shogunate while "untouchables" in India are religiously just
subhumans.