Pimp On. And I'm surprised it took You so long to learn about Burakumin.

Do they act like black hoodlums too?

"yo yo homie yo what up yo werd"

Are you really surprised Azim? It's not something that's ever spoken about in the media or in casual conversation. It took me nearly two years of living here before I heard of them. If anyone should be hip-hop dancing and rapping it's the Burakumin, and Japan's other minority groups. Hip-hop in Japan doesn't have the same role of voicing social unrest that it traditionally has had back in the U.S. though. I wonder what kind of music minority groups in Japan produce. Does it go beyond traditional Ainu-type stuff?

Speaking of minority groups, I thought this was also an interesting group nobody talks about:
There are other disregarded minorities, like those who fail the unforgiving test of the Japanese work ethic. The Madogiwa- Zoku (‘window-side people’) are one such unhappy group. Passed over for promotion and officially regarded by their employers as useless, these usually elderly workers are never dismissed. Day after day they check in at the office, where they are assigned conspicuously humiliating desks by the window, suggesting that they will waste time looking out. They are pitied by the most junior of secretaries; victims of the refined cruelty of Japanese management. Some descend into addiction or madness while others can be found in the Kamagasaki district of Osaka where they must compete with younger and stronger workers from Iran or Bangladesh for casual labour jobs.

Sound familiar at all fellow gaijin? How many of you have desks by the window or in other conspicuous places? If Japanese buildings had basements that's probably where we'd all be, fighting to keep our stapplers.

Visitor (and parties with comments of a similar vein): how about we chill on the ignorance, yo!

Well put T.

if i didnt have a clown phobia before! and here`s to hot HS boys dancing skillfully!

Who knew that the Japanese could dance. Once again my white boy nature will leave me empty on the dance floor. Word.

You sure it's your "white boy nature" that's the problem?