Indigenous Resistance and Racist Schooling on the Borders of Empires: Coast Salish Cultural Survival

Indigenous Resistance and Racist Schooling on the Borders of Empires: Coast Salish Cultural Survival by Michael Marker is about the real life struggle the Coast Salish people experience while trying to maintain their heritage and culture while resisting assimilation.  The Coast Salish people have lived in the same area, Washington and British Columbia, before the US and Canadian borders were drawn.  Therefore, they do not understand why it is wrong to travel across the border regularly because they are just going to visit a friend or relative all on their tribes land in their minds.  However, it is illegal to cross the border.  The Coast Salish children were placed into public schools that were trying to strip them of their native heritage.  However, the racism was so great they left and started attending boarding schools which also tried to assimilate them.  The children kept up with their native language and heritage through elders who would teach them.  The US and Canada should set aside land for the Coast Salish people to live their natural heritage out and have their own schools.  This land should also include some if not all of their old fishing holes.

Farming and the Piedmont

The Piedmont region is home to large plots of agriculture and farming.  However, much of this farming is industrialized.  There are classes and organizations to help others learn about the farming community.  Urban sprawl has increased the land prices for small farms.  Thus, small farmers are losing their farms due to rising taxes, equipment costs, and smaller markets for traditional crops.  Markets are shrinking because people would prefer to pay the cheapest price for a product even if it came from an industrialized farm instead of a small, family operated one.  There are dozens of groups that promote healthy alternatives and sustainability news all across the Piedmont.

http://www.elon.edu/e-web/bft/sustainability/res-lrGroups.xhtml

Environmental Ethics

Environmental ethics appeared as a subfield of philosophy in the early 1970s.  During the sixties environmental awareness and social movements were on the rise.  Humans’ moral relationship with nature was a hot topic for the public in the 1960s.  One of the biggest motivators for environmental ethics was the desire to create ethical theories that made humans accountable for their work in the natural world.

One main issue that was debated in the early years of environmental ethics discussions was what entities were morally significant and how significant.  Individualists thought that humans, animals, and plants were giving automatic value unlike the larger wholes.  Species, biospheres, and ecosystems were comprised from the smaller, already valuable, entities which made them significant because of the individuals in them.  On the contrary, the holism perspective believes that the whole biospheres, ecosystems, and species are of a higher value.  Individualist believe that each animal holds the same value whether they are endangered, domesticates, a destructive invasive species, or wild.  Holist believe different animals carry various weight dependent on their contribution to processes in the ecosystem.

McShane, K. (2009), Environmental Ethics: An Overview. Philosophy Compass, 4: 407–420. doi: 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2009.00206.x