Last year, Google added woodblock-print, Edo-era maps of Japan to its service. It seems that the Japanese have begun to take notice of this and are not happy; mainly because these maps can be viewed overlaying current satellite photos and clearly label areas that were once once home to lower-caste communities. Many of these locations of buraku villages were not generally known to the public, and people are not happy at Google for giving the world easy access to this information.
So why is this a big deal now? This group of people, once known as "burakumin," were outcasts of society due to their death-related occupations (such as grave diggers, butchers, leather craftsmen). In the Shinto religion, impurities are able to cling to people or objects. The killing of animals, seen as an impure act, was a cause of contamination. Thus, the burakumin were placed in the lowest class of people (the "eta" or "filthy mass") and were socially discriminated against. Clearly, Google did not do their homework to predict what the social ramifications of their actions would be.
The Associated Press reports that even today, descendents of the burakumin class face discrimination:
But they still face prejudice, based almost entirely on where they live or their ancestors lived. Moving is little help, because employers or parents of potential spouses can hire agencies to check for buraku ancestry through Japan's elaborate family records, which can span back over a hundred years.
An employee at a large, well-known Japanese company, who works in personnel and has direct knowledge of its hiring practices, said the company actively screens out burakumin job seekers.
"If we suspect that an applicant is a burakumin, we always do a background check to find out," she said. She agreed to discuss the practice only on condition that neither she nor her company be identified.
Google then tried to quietly delete the labels on the Edo-perio maps, but this only caused them more trouble.
Two weeks later, after the public comments and at least one reporter contacted Google, the old Japanese maps were suddenly changed, wiped clean of any references to the buraku villages. There was no note made of the changes, and they were seen by some as an attempt to quietly dodge the issue. "This is like saying those people didn't exist. There are people for whom this is their hometown, who are still living there now," said Takashi Uchino from the Buraku Liberation League headquarters in Tokyo.
It seems no matter what Google does, they can't win this fight. The original maps are owned by the University of California in Berkley, currently being overseen by Daid Rumsy. Rumsy has communicated that he's willing to change the map back or leave them as they are, depending on the public sentiment pf the Japanese.
"We tend to think of maps as factual, like a satellite picture, but maps are never neutral, they always have a certain point of view," he is quoted by AP.
Whether its discrimination or not, Google will have to acknowledge that this information could have a significant negative impact on Japan. Kind of makes you marvel at the idea of social prejudices from hundreds of years ago being relevant in all areas of the world today.
11 comments
Why treat people who obviously have not earned their loathing like that? That's fucked up, and now there is something about Japan that I severely dislike.
On top of that, it's like dealing with a child, the way they're handling this map issue. Cry like a bitch if it's there, cry like a bitch if it isn't. FUCK YOU. How the hell is a top-down view of an area not neutral!? IT'S INFORMATION! Information is completely neutral in and of itself, it's what people DO with it that makes it good or bad.
Clearly they are making it bad.
Fuckin' whiners