TRUE
OR FALSE: GENERATION ALPHA -- What did we learn about virtual and real from COVID-19
school? (1) As a U.S. Senator, Joe Biden
traveled between Wilmington, DE and Washington, DC by train; (2) “Uncle Joe” is
either a character from Petticoat Junction or Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell’s worst nightmare in a proposed $2-trillon infrastructure bill; (3) No AMTRAK train has ever arrived on Black
Wall Street.
By Eric
Stradford, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired
AMWS May 8,
2021, Muskogee – A virtual Presidential whistle stop marks the 100th year
since white “settlers” devastated Black Wall Street. The “Frisco” is one of many information infrastructure
projects considered for a Learning Journey back to the future. The railroad tracks just south of North Tulsa,
Oklahoma’s Greenwood community is but one haunting reminder that American infrastructure
does not necessarily sustain “One Nation Under God” on both sides of the
railroad track.
Fact: “Uncle Joe” is not the 46th President
of the United States. He’s the character
played by American Actor Edgar Buchanan in a 1960s situation comedy. “Petticoat
Junction” in no way references two California women behind the man at his first
address to a joint session of Congress. And,
The New Stradford Hotel Upon Black
Wall Street might never geographically co-exist within a White Supremist’s vision
of America’s future.
Give or take
a trillion dollars or so, the cost for “healing the soul of America” is racking
up a whole new set of zeros. Today’s new
math calls for the youngest living generation to reconcile virtual and physical
reality in a quadrillion dollar economy.
$1,000,000,000,000. The next named number after trillion
is quadrillion.
Anybody
planning quadrennial events in 2021
will need to adjust from a single to multi-generational mindset. Funding decisions made now will ultimately
fall on Generation Alpha and two to three generations beyond.
Biden
Administration Infrastructure envisions Economic Inclusion for folks
who are ready, willing and able to #PlayTheGame. There’s
at least $80 billion on the way to AMTRAK.
There is significantly less on the way to Muscogee
for misappropriated infrastructure resulting from the “Indian Removal Act.” AMTRAK will need to backtrack beyond its half
century dependency on federal aid to a time when railroad infrastructure promised
Economic Inclusion
for all.
With the
right balance of faith and science, governments, businesses, communities, and
individuals can work together to create infrastructure linking the world's
telecommunication and computer networks together. In the United States, public policy is finally
catching up to the Clinton era idea of information infrastructure, enabling the
transmission of every conceivable information and communication application.
President Biden’s
passion for choo-choo trains may move a $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill closer to
public law. But, in Red vs. Blue politics, compromise almost never produces purple. Rather than funding more dead-end jobs at
minimum wage, why not just seed a $1 m trust for every low-income citizen in
Generation Alpha? If we ensure more of
them grow up whole, they might produce 3D printers or the next technological
evolution to maintain their infrastructure.
A half
century ago, Pullman porters rode the rails to inclusion. It was not their job to learn on behalf of
the disenfranchised, but the information they shared empowered friends-n-kin with
a glimpse of what is possible...still.
From across
the tracks, America received porters as their on-ramp to mobility. Pullman
porters served American railroads from the late 1860s until the Pullman Company
ceased operations on December 31, 1968, just three years before President Richard
Nixon’s infrastructure vision saddled America with a quasi-public corporation that,
by now, should have ended poverty.
The National
Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK) receives a combination of state and
federal subsidies but is managed as a for-profit organization. The United States federal government through
the Secretary of Transportation owns all the company's issued and outstanding
preferred stock. Amtrak's headquarters
is located one block west of Union Station in Washington, D.C.
There is no
AMTRAK service to Tulsa, Oklahoma. There
is little infrastructure investment north of the railroad tracks. Throughout AMTRAK’s fifty years of government
operations and appropriations, political compromise has ignored one major cornerstone
for American infrastructure. So, why is
this important?
For 100
years, planes, trains, automobiles, and banks have run on tax-payer subsidies. According to the Tulsa
Preservation Commission, the Curtiss-Southwest Airplane Company was the
nation’s first commercial interstate air freight shipping business. They opened an airfield in Tulsa near Apache
Street and Memorial Drive in 1921. On
May 31, that same year, white “settlers” bombed Black Wall Street from airplanes.
Where did they come from? Where did they go?
On January
6, 2021, almost 100 years after the attack on Black Wall Street, the United
States Capitol met a domestic terrorist attack with familiar confusion and
disbelief. However, the outcome was all
too familiar outcome. The FBI is still investigating,
“Where did the attackers come from? Where
did they go?”
Commercial airplanes,
AMTRAK trains and automobiles may offer some hint of how we go. But in getting there, we’ll need to imagine
affordable landings at a yet to be determined destination, “Where
Do We go From Here?”
