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I consider myself to have been very fortunate to have over a decade long career as a NOAA Corps Officer, resigning my commission as a LCDR in 2014. Had it not been for the birth of my son and resulting change in my life priorities, I would have gladly retired after a 20–30 year career, but the prolonged family separation and frequent relocations were not aspects that my wife was thrilled with. I got to do a lot of things that I never would have otherwise and it proved to be a very rewarding career choice.The NOAA Corps is not well known, so every officer should have a 30-second ‘elevator speech’ about what the Corps is and what we do. My ‘elevator speech’ went: “The NOAA Corps is the smallest of the nations 7 uniformed services with about 320-commissioned officers that primarily operate NOAA’s fleet of ships and aircraft and also serve in leadership, administrative, operational, and technical roles throughout the organization.”During my career I worked primarily under NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey (OCS) making nautical charts for navigation, but we did have officers that worked in fisheries, oceanography, meteorology, and ocean exploration. The Corps has its history through the USC&GS (US Coast and Geodedic Survey) and my, admittedly biased, opinion is that OCS is the most rewarding career path for an officer and also where the NOAA Corps serves the most useful role. So, with that caveat in mind, here are my answers to your individual questions, in a slightly modified order:How is the training? NOAA is a direct commissioning program and targets college graduates with engineering, science, or math degrees. You will swear in and then begin your Basic Officer Training Course (BOTC). I was recruited out of the Colorado School of Mines with a Mechanical Engineering degree and most of my BOTC classmates were from similar backgrounds, but a few were more experienced and coming from careers later in life looking for a career with more excitement. When I went through BOTC, it was held in Kings Point, NY at the US Merchant Marine Academy; military bearing was not emphasized and a majority of our time was spent learning to drive ships and getting our STCW qualifications. Now, however, the BOTC program has moved to the USCG Academy and parallels their OCS program with an additional month of ship driving training at MSI (Marine Simulation Institute) in Newport, RI.Do you only work with other corps members or civilians too? The NOAA Corps only has 321 commissioned officers, while NOAA has over 10,000 civilian employees. A majority of your career is spent working primarily with civilians. On the ships the crew (Deck, Engineering, Stewards, and Survey Departments) are all Wage Mariners, which are the same as civilian crews of Military Sea-lift Command. The rest of NOAA’s staff are standard GS or equivalent employees; in both my shore assignments my immediate supervisors were civilians.Where do you work? NOAA has offices around the country and some very remote locations. One of the interview questions that I always asked officer candidates was, “do you have a problem serving in any geographic location?” I would then emphasize the ANY geographic location by pointing out the NOAA Corps billet as station chief for the South Pole. I had a somewhat unusual career in that I spent 7 years in the Seattle area and 4 years in Rhode Island, but usually officers can expect to be relocated every 2–3 years. For a full list of places that NOAA Corps Officers can be assigned, you can look over the Billet List.How long are you away from home? During my sea assignments the longest I have been away from home port is 7-months, which was on my first year on the ship, but there are other ships that have been years between returning to their home ports and some (due to facility or logistic issues) that virtually never go to their home ports. The NOAA Ship Ron Brown cruises around the world and is very rarely in their home port. The NOAA Ship Fairweather is unable to dock in her home port (Ketchikan, AK) because the NOAA pier there has been condemned and there is no other option for long term moorage. Being in your home port does not necessarily mean that you will have much time in port or at home; often that just means a couple days in port between legs. You can also look at days at sea (DAS) as an indicator for time away from home. My first year we had 215-DAS, but that has been reduced to around 180-DAS annually due to budget cuts.What is a “day in the life”? This one varies substantially between officers. As a generalization, aboard ship you can expect to stand a 4-on/8-off watch cycle and on a shore assignment you would be working in more of a 9–5 type job environment. I can’t speak to pilot’s life, but I hear it’s pretty sweet and filled with Marriotts and bonus pay. I can give you my experiences over my past assignments:My last assignment was as the Navigation Manager for the Northeast Region for OCS. I liked to joke that I was a professional meeting attender, running from the Port of New York/New Jersey, the second largest port in the US, and all ports north to Eastport, Maine. As Navigation Manager, I served as the primary contact for NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey and had the opportunity of working closely with the pilots associations, the United States Coast Guard, Port Authorities, and other agencies and port operators. During my time in this position, I had the unfortunate privilege to be an integral part of the response efforts to Hurricane Irene and Post-Tropical Cyclone Sandy. While I hope never to repeat such an event, it is something that I look back on proudly. I worked closely with the USCG, USACE, and other port partners in the Marine Transportation System Recovery Unit, and cannot sing their praises loudly enough. I even wrote a white paper on it. Aside from those few emergency response operations, this was essentially an office job with a lot of travel.I previously served in the position of Ocean Engineer with the PMEL Engineering Development Division in Seattle, Washington. At PMEL, I had the opportunity to serve as a project manager; overseeing design, prototyping, testing, manufacture, and implementation of several mooring and instrument systems. This included work on the Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART) buoys, a new generation Easy-to-Deploy (ETD) data buoy platform, and the Aerosol Laboratory Unmanned Aerial System. A typical day here was going into the office around 7am and working on designs in a CAD with a few opportunities to play in the machine shop or do some testing and then head home at around 5pm. I did have a few chances to go out on buoy deployment/recovery cruises, once on a NOAA ship and once on the JAMSTEC vessel Mirai.I had two sea tours aboard the NOAA Ship Rainier, a 231-ft hydrographic (I will be abbreviating this hydro) survey ship working throughout the waters of the Northwest and Alaska. I also had the opportunity to sail on oceanographic and fisheries ships as an augmenting officer when they were short staffed. On those ships JOs (junior officers) would do their two 4-hour watches and spend a few extra hours doing collateral duties like correcting nautical charts, managing the ships imprest fund (petty cash), organizing ship’s moral events, maintain damage control plans, etc. On a hydro ship your collateral duties included conducting survey operations in addition to all the standard collateral duties; it’s this cross over that I think makes officers on hydro so valuable, the experience gained in navigating the ship on the bridge carries over to acquisitions and data processing for the nautical chart.On my first sea tour, I was quickly introduced to the world of hydrographic survey and managed my first survey sheet (under the tutelage of an experienced sheet manager) on the ship’s first cruise. Rainier and her sister ship, Fairweather, are somewhat unique in the NOAA fleet in that they will transit to the working grounds and anchor, running the majority of our survey operations with survey launches and small boats. We would stand watch on the way to the working area, but once there we would shift to anchor watches and the majority of the crew would move to more of a day work schedule. Launches would be dropped promptly at 8am, they would acquire data until 4pm when we would pick the launches and the data would get preliminary processing that evening and sheet managers would plan acquisition for the following day. After 2–3 weeks we would head into a nearby port for a weekend and then do the whole thing over again until the project area surveys were completed.My most recently tour was as Field Operations Officer (FOO). As FOO, I was responsible for managing operations of the ship’s six 30-ft hydrographic survey launches and two small boats to acquire near shore hydrographic survey data. Being third in command and with a wardroom of 13-officers, I did not have to stand a navigation watch, but was kept busy with survey planning, data processing issues, troubleshooting survey equipment, etc. On average I probably worked every hour of the day that I wasn’t sleeping (16–18 hour days were kind of the norm), but being a hydro FOO, especially on a large multi-platform vessel like Rainier, is probably one of the most demanding jobs in the Corps.All that being said, officer’s career paths and experiences are extremely varied and your career is what you make it, particularly on the shore side. You can always watch the recruiting video (I make a brief appearance with a UAS):

This is a very complex issue and I’ve had to think about this answer for awhile. I think people gloss over the realities and facts and just look for a quick and easy solution to fix the problems that relate to the Black community.This will be an extremely long post because it’s important to describe who I am, my background, education, associations and then justify my conclusions.I believe in being impartial and fair. My position on reparations is taken from understanding the country, understanding Black culture, White culture and the position of immigrants.I had no choice on what color my skin was when I was in my Mother’s womb. I had no choice in who my parents were. I am who I am.We Are VariedBlack people are not one homogeneous unit. We are varied. We have Black folks of all types. We have smart and intellectual Blacks. We have your every day, “run of the mill” Black folks. We have criminals. We have geeks, nerds and some that are flamboyant. We are not all the same.So, how does reparations apply?Not like most would think.Current LandscapeWhen dealing with reparations, we have to look at the current landscape of America. I think I hold a unique perspective on race relations because I understand both sides of the issue. Regardless of whether someone wants to admit it or not, there are two sides. Getting the sides to agree is where the challenges lay.As a Black man in America, I will not qualify for, and should not be paid reparations. Even though I was born in New York, my historical roots can only be traced back to the mid-1800’s. While my ancestral roots does include the crime of slavery, it did not happen to my family here in the US. I am of Jamaican descent so while I was born here my familial roots are in Jamaica.As for native-born Black Americans, the challenge becomes “who among us” would be eligible for reparations? How would that be determined? The savagery of slavery then followed by the Slave Codes, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights struggles, led to the systematic and deliberate destruction of the Black family by the US government.White men, in particular, are quick to point out failures within the Black Community but then clam up when the root causes of many of these issues point directly back to systematic racism implemented, condoned and supported by White men in positions of authority.To discuss reparations, we have to look at the complete picture. Many in the Black community will disagree with me and call me a sell-out. Others will agree with me. I will simply write my truth as I have experienced it. The reader will have to determine whether they agree with me or not.My Qualifications To SpeakAs I mentioned, I am a Black man born in New York in the ‘60’s. However, being of Jamaican descent, I was sent to Jamaica at 6-months of age and returned to the US in 1972, I lived in Far Rockaway, New York (NY)until I was 10 years old, at which time I moved to SouthWest Ohio (OH). (I am not abbreviating the states because I understand some Quora readers are not familiar with all US state abbreviations.)OH is a completely different world than NY and it was basically city folk moving to the country. It was culture shock.I adapted quickly and began working at the age of 12 years old when I was delivering newspapers. I had only been on my paper route for a few weeks when I met the man that would influence and guide my life from 12 years old through adulthood. He was a White man that had been born and raised there in SW OH. He was a local business owner and who owned a farm where he trained World Champion Tennessee Walking horses. I fell in love with the beauty and majesty of the horses and my first “real” job at 12 was to be a farmhand. So yes, I my first real job included shoveling shit from horse stalls.In addition to the farm, when I turned 16 years old, I began working at his other businesses as well. It was hard work at times but a good experience for me to work, see so many different people and how they went about their daily lives at work and at play.All the while I was working, I was dong very well as a musical student that was participating in competitions and programs around the state. I built a very close bond with my music coach and her family. She was an older White lady who told me that I had natural abilities of which I had absolutely no idea. She was a disciplinarian, strict and challenging but at the same time, she taught me about responsibility and accountability.I was not a great school student. I was average. I struggled in math but did well enough in my other classes. As a Black child, I was always told to “do your homework” or “study hard” but I never received any guidance or assistance from my parents or family. Why? Because my parents weren’t educated. How could they help me do homework when they had never learned the subjects themselves?Understanding how schools and the educational system worked for Blacks in the 1940’s and 50’s, it was a different world at that time. College was never an option for them so my parents were, and still are, considered uneducated. This is not uncommon in the Black community when you’re referring to people that are 70 or older.I was talented enough to earn a full scholarship to study music at Miami University in OH and it was due to the efforts of my music coach that convinced me that I was not an idiot. Since my parents never graduated from college, for me the idea of going to college was never on my radar. Their only continual reminder to me was that the day after I graduated, I better go get a job or get out of the house.I’m not so sure how it is in poor White homes when it comes to kids preparing to graduate but in Black homes, it’s not an uncommon or strange for kids to be told to “get out” at age 18. The way my step-father explained it was that once I graduated and turned 18, I was legally an adult. There could only ever be one man in his house and so I would have to leave. The only ones that rule didn’t apply to was to my sisters who could stay as long as they wished, but were expected to contribute financially to the household budget.Post-Civil Rights Black MaleAs a child of the 60’s & 70’s, I remember hearing the frustrations of Black men who were hoping for equality and opportunity. They worked long hours for low wages in a time where inflation was through the roof. Decisions were oftentimes made in desperation as the men would struggle to find meaningful work without the aid of college degree or any technical schooling. People worked their way up through apprenticeships and what I believe were called “journeyman” training so that they could become skilled at what they did.However, with the Vietnam War raging and many Black men being called to service, there was a range of problems brewing in the Black Community. Less than 10 years after the violence of the Civil Rights marches,, Black men were still being called “Nigger’ in the street, young kids had things thrown at them and the Black family was in flux. Black men were still stopped on the street and issued citations for minor infractions. Alcohol abuse began to rise. As soldiers returned from Vietnam, they brought the war back home with them. Mentally damaged and oftentimes, psychologically unbalanced due to what we now term as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), they turned to alcohol, drugs and other harmful behaviors. Having to deal with a public that despised the war and the military at the time, it was an extremely difficult time for the soldiers. White soldiers had their own battles to deal with but Black soldiers had a whole host of additional issues as well.Home Life EffectsSome of the challenges and frustrations that many Black men faced in the workplace were pushed to the back o f their minds until they got home from work. It was at that point that they would take their frustrations out on their spouses and their children. If a man is made to feel “less than” while at work, then when he goes home, he now feels as if he is “the king”. This type of mindset led to abuse and neglect.In my life, I had to deal with a problematic step-father and was forced from my childhood home. Due to my late application to college, there were no rooms for me to live in the dormitories so I had been commuting to school. It was a 25-mile drive to school from home daily so once I was forced out, I decided to live in my car. I would stay in the school building until late at night and then go to my car to sleep. I would shower in the gym and then eat in the cafeteria.This did not go on for very long because somehow, my music coach found out and demanded that I stay with her family and commute from there. So that’s what I did. I got to know them, and they got to know me extremely well.It is based on these experiences that I’ve formed my views on reparations.Not A Black Issue OnlyReparations is not strictly a Black issue. It is an American issue. In my estimation, reparations will serve no meaningful purpose unless the lies of racism, prejudice, White Supremacy, White Nationalism are eradicated and Black Consciousness is awakened which will hopefully foment a desire to work together for a common cause; the credibility, viability and long-term success of this country.Over and over again, I return to the question of “who among us” should be the recipient of reparations? What is a fair and equitable amount of money for the value of a human life? What is the fair market value for separating families? What is the fair market value of raping women? Does lynching bring in as much reparation value as dismemberment? If dogs were used to attack a slave, does that count as extenuating circumstances? But even with all this, who rates payment?We must take a look to see exactly who benefited from slavery? Was it only the Southern states that benefited or did the Northern states benefit as well?There are many poor, underprivileged and under-served Black people in this country. There are also many poor, underprivileged and under-served White people in this country. If we take the plight of the Native American into consideration, they are also poor, under-privileged and under-served as well. In other words, there’s more than enough poverty to go around.But as we’re focusing on Blacks in America, we have to address the vile and disgusting plague that was placed on a group of people for whom recovery has been slow and inconsistent.Justification & BeliefsThe damage caused by slavery was and still remains extensive and destructive. Slavery introduced a mindset and belief system of inequality. At some point, we must acknowledge that slavery and all associated actions were supported by, and defended by religious and judicial institutions that justified this abhorrent and immoral behavior.In using their religious ideology to enslave a group of people, justification for their actions was easy to find in the religious texts that they relied on for instructions. Their holy books were the means for justifying the atrocities that were done to a group of people that they considered to be less than human.Forcing the enslaved people to convert to the very belief system that enslaved them, created a mindset of compliance. Comply to the Master and you won’t be whipped, beaten or killed. Comply and work hard. Comply and do what you’re told. Comply and you will be rewarded by the Master.Black Theology - Black Jesus, Black HeavenOver the centuries, Blacks have created their own theology and relied heavily on that theology, to survive. The theology promised great rewards for enduring suffering. The theology taught our ancestors to be long-suffering, to have patience, be obedient, be loyal to one another and offer forgiveness when needed.However, that same theology taught us that we had to turn the other cheek. It was our responsibility to forgive the Massa for slaughtering our children. Slaves were also to forgive the Massa for raping the women, separating the families. Forgive, forgive, forgive. Comply. Submit. Don’t question. That was the message of the religion.Over the centuries, the message remained the same. No matter what denomination of Black theology you went to, the message remains the same; “One day you’ll be rewarded for your perseverance, dedication, forgiveness and strong faith.” Not today, but “some day.”Questions arose and still remain. Why is Jesus always pictured as White? How could a Middle Eastern Jew with hair like wool and skin of bronze be pictured as a blonde haired, blue eyed stud-muffin?When slaves were murdered, since they were converted to Christianity, did they go to the same Heaven as the Slave Masters that killed them? After all, they were Christians. The Southern Baptist Convention apologized for their position and support for slavery only a couple decades ago. If the slaves didn’t have souls, because they weren’t human, where did they go when they died?These were the questions that arose and combined to create and reinforce the Black Church. It became the epicenter of Black Culture.However, as we are now in 2019 and Black families have started to leave religion behind, the reality of the real world sets in and with no requirement to conform to any ideology, the need for independence and accountability grows. However, the freedom gained from leaving behind a religion and belief system which at its core is used to justify racism and White Superiority, leaves Black Americans to face a Justice System founded on the same ideas.As people become enlightened and aware of the true history of Blacks and slavery, the demand for reparations also rises. However, there can be no reparation without reformation of the Justice System.The Church of BlacknessAs previously mentioned, religion plays a huge role in the Black Community. The church was the central gathering place for Blacks as it had been a place of refuge and community where Blacks were allowed to gather together and bond in unity. From the roots of Christianity in slavery, the church was the one place where the people could congregate and share their worries and concerns.As people became more educated and illiteracy began to dissipate, the churches began to change. Preachers began introducing doctrines they claimed they had been enlightened with. New denominations were formed within Black America and where a Slave Master could not separate groups of people due to their belief in a God that would eventually grant them freedom, the religions were able to separate the people into groups or denominations. It’s a separation that continues to this very day.Go to any large urban city in the US and you will see multiple Black churches on almost every corner. There are churches everywhere and on Sundays, you will see Black folks lining up to attend church services.What many White people fail to recognize is the importance and the role that churches play in Black America. In almost any sense, and in every aspect, as someone who has literally traveled around the world, you will not find a more religious group of people than Black Americans.While White people are religious, they are not as religious as Black people because Black people have a vast background of hope, faith and belief. For some, these factors are enough to motivate them to go out and achieve success.For others, it’s a death curse. They rely so heavily on those three tenets that they sit and stagnate instead of being motivated to go out and perform. They would rather sit, pray and wait for action than to go out and be actively involved in their own success. That is why we seem to celebrate when someone “makes it big”. When we see White millionaires and billionaires, we say “Oh, they have a lot of money. They’re very wealthy.” When we see Black millionaires and billionaires, the first thing we ask is “I wonder how they got their money?” We don’t anticipate or expect success. We hope for it. We pray for it but most do nothing to achieve it.Now, in fairness, some churches do teach that people should be self-sufficient and to go out and work hard to achieve success. They stress the importance of a good education and try to motivate the youth to go out and work hard. But, again, if you have no community to fall back on because all of the elders in your family are illiterate or poorly educated, then chances are that you will struggle.Salvation For the RacesMy problem with Black churches is deep and very personal. What I didn’t mention in my biography above is that I come from a very religious family. My abusive step-father was a preacher. My biological father was a preacher. My grandparents on both sides were preachers. My great-grandfather was a preacher. I have uncles and even aunts that are also ministers or serving in some form of leadership capacity within the Black church.My earliest memories are of church. I can’t remember a time in my youth when I was not heavily involved in church activities, attending at least 5 times per week at a minimum.In my observation, the problems of the Black Community and the Black Church were tied deeply and inseparably due to theological differences, competition and human desire to achieve recognition.Many Black people live in what they consider to be a “spiritual” realm. Anything and everything they do is somehow based on their theological interpretation of the Bible. For those Blacks who follow Islam, the same types of thoughts, beliefs, and practices abound.Many Black people will talk about “faith”. We live our lives and make decisions based on religious teachings. When attending church 5 times per week, you’re told how you should react to things. The preacher plays such an essential and critical role because people listen intently to what he has to say and then they go out and do exactly as he said to do in his sermon. When things don’t work out as expected, they now have to go back and figure out where they fell short, or failed, and instead of accepting that things in life happen, there is always some sort of “spiritual excuse” for things happening.This thing happened because of a demon. That other thing happened because of a bad spirit. God was punishing us for something they thought. These are the thoughts and beliefs that run through the minds of Black Americans.Another issue is that with these practices, there is an enemy. The enemy is out to “steal your soul, rob your joy, bring trials and tribulation, and ultimately send you to Hell.” The enemy is on the job, in the stores, out in public and it becomes a life experience of believing that everybody is out to get you. And in the Black church, the unspoken word when they talk about the enemy is “White people in positions of power or authority.”Now, read this carefully. It’s not about White people in general. They are not the enemy. Again. The enemy is White people in positions of power, or authority.If you attend Black churches, you will hear people talking about the boss, about the manager, supervisor or other workers. As the minority, they’re referring to the White majority. These people are the “tempters”. They are the oppressors who are “on the loose!” They’re agents of Satan who are roaming around, to and fro, seeking whom they may devour and that is in reference to White America and White Supremacy.You’ll never hear this in a congregation that’s mixed. You’ll only hear it in a Black church and especially if you go to a non-denominational, Southern Church that believes in Bible literacy. The theologies simply don’t mix. Sunday mornings between 8AM and Noon are the most segregated hours in the United States. White people go to White Churches to worship a White Jesus. Black people go to Black churches to worship a Black Jesus. Mexicans go to a Mexican church to worship a Mexican Jesus. Of course nobody will say that out loud and most people won’t even think of it, but the facts are what they are. I’ve attended all sorts of churches and it’s amazing how a culture will dictate how Jesus, God, Allah and other deities are viewed through the lens of cultural norms and ideals.The Black preacher preaches with passion, fire and brimstone lauding the faithful to use their faith to overcome the devil. White folks go to their church and sing their hymns, greet one another and then listen to a sermon about how great God is. Mexican & Hispanic preachers talk about perseverance, hard work, dedication and are thankful to have the things they have, even if only meager possessions.Discussing religion and politics is the big, bad taboo subject but they are unfortunately intertwined. Understanding the different theologies gives insight into how and why it would be difficult to enact reparation without raising a whole new set of problems. As divided as this country already is, reparations would split the country more than the typical Left/Right political disagreements.Black IdentityIn the quest to establish our own identity, many Black Americans have pursued truth. However, most of us (when taken in totality) are ill suited to pursue truth because we were never taught to think independently. We were taught to comply. We were taught to “just do what you’re told.”Who are we? What do we represent? How can a people not know their history? Many people can trace their roots back for thousands of years. Many families can go back historically on their family tree that looks like a forest. Many Black American’s can’t do that. They can go back to their great-grandparents but then their history stops. The records are gone or maybe never existed.Again. Who are we? Who do we want to be? Where are we going, as a people? What are we doing with our lives? What are our goals, dreams and aspirations?These questions apply to everyone, regardless of race or heritage.Existing IssuesA solid percentage of White men despise and have outright hatred for Black men. I don’t mention how large that percent is because we don’t know. We just know that we have to admit that racism exists today and will exist tomorrow as well. Let’s be brutally honest, shall we? Some of it is understandable.As a human being, we are capable of treating others in cruel ways at times. Criminals don’t typically discriminate when selecting their victims but some do. We must recognize that some White folks feel the way they do because they fell victim to crimes committed by Black folks. What they fail to realize is that in some instances, the Black criminal that victimized them, also victimized other Black people as well. It serves no purpose to try to go “tit-for tat” into who did what against who when it pertains to crimes. Let’s agree that criminals victimize innocent people and should be punished.What I didn’t mention is some of the reasons that some White folks despise Black folks. There is a percentage that seems to believe that all Blacks are on welfare, searching for a hand-out, lazy, unemployed, criminal and only care about sex. It’s a stereotype perpetuated by all forms of media in this country and it is the root cause for many of the innocent people that get murdered every year.Some Blacks are lazy and are on welfare. That’s not a secret. But, if we’re going to have a moment of honesty, then we must recognize that there are just as many, if not more, lazy White people. Some Blacks are indeed unemployed but so are White folks. Some Blacks are criminal, prone to violence and all they do is think about sex and there are White folks exactly the same.Crime is not a Black or White thing. It’s a people thing. No matter where you go in the world, there will always be someone who breaks the law and behaves horribly. Don’t act or pretend that Black people are the worst villains on the planet. Go look at the crime statistics in Eastern KY, West Virginia Appalachia Country and even rural New Hampshire and Maine. These states are predominately White and the criminals are almost always universally White.Now, while there is a solid percentage of White folks that despise Blacks, and other minority groups, they are not the majority. If we look at the world through the lens of honesty and integrity, we have to recognize that not all people hold racist ideas. We have numerous inter-racial marriages, bi-racial children, music spanning races, movie stars and many other examples of Whites and Blacks getting along just fine. Even in genres such as pornography, a large number of White women appear to love being with Black men.What we need is for the non-racist White people to take a stand and speak out against the loud, obnoxious, arrogant and dangerous White Supremacists and White Nationalists. Can you legislate against racism? People have hated each other from the beginning of time. How can we expect to change it now?I’ll tell you. It’s a two-way street. We can expect, and even demand, that we are to be treated equally in all places of business. At the same time, we must be cordial and sensitive to the environment we’re in. Many times, I’ve seen people of all colors behave in the most uncivil manner once they consume a few glasses of alcohol. Some people don’t even need booze. They’re just loud and aggressive. They should be aware and conscious of their behavior at all times and respect the value of the down-time of others who are also out and about.In other words, stop going to places and feel like you have to be the loudest person in the bar. Treat people around you with respect and almost always, on a universal scale and they will treat you back with respect. If there is to be unity in this country, we have to start by healing the racial divide. Reparations is being willing to own up to the truths of what happened but at the same time, being willing to let it go. Never forget, but don’t let it be the driving factor.Good Idea?So, is reparations a good idea? If we go by pure intent, it would seem like a reasonable idea. Japanese Americans were paid for being housed in interment camps for 4 -years. This is a HUGE sticking point for Black Americans. The Japanese were paid millions of dollars after they were imprisoned. Now, what’s interesting to me is that there is no question about who was responsible for not only the December 7th bombing of Pearl Harbor, but also wide ranging destruction throughout the Pacific.While it was horrible for them to endure what they did, they did not suffer the same as the Black slaves. The benefits of Black Slavery were an economic boom and success of a certain portion of this country.Read Toni Skinner’s post in this thread. Look at the sheer number of “everybody else but Blacks” that got paid reparations, received apologies and compensation.However, back to the question at hand. Who should be paid?Face The Facts - This Country Is Over-Run With IgnoranceI don’t think anyone should be paid individually. The country lied. They hood-winked, bamboozled and straight up lied to Black folks.Again. For the millionth time, what we should do is to work to eradicate the racism that exists in this country. American history, especially as being taught today in relation to Black America, is full of lies and outrageous justifications for a dark period of time. We must correct the lies and distortions that have been passed down for decades about slavery, who was responsible, Jim Crow, Sundown Towns, Black Wall Street, The Tuskegee Airmen, the role of Blacks during WWI, WWII, and Korea. If this nation is to heal, then a complete and accurate accounting of history must take place. Willful and intentional ignorance should have no place in this country.The South must come to terms with the accurate facts of their status; the Confederacy lost. Stop trying to rewrite history. This is what causes division, anger and separation. The Southern “forefathers’ were traitors. They seceded and formed their own government, military and financial system. They supported and fought for an ideology that was wicked. They are not heroes and never will be. This country must own up to that.The Long Roots of Suppressing EducationRestoration of the Education System in this country is the first step in healing the chasm between Black Americans and White Americans. As long as there’s a divide between the educational opportunities between the have’s and the have-not’s, there will be a divide that individual financial reparations won’t fix.In rural areas of the South, where there are many descendants of slaves, the educational system is in shambles. Southern students can quote religious texts verbatim but can’t understand basic mathematics. It’s a utopia of religious people with all sorts of problems which can almost all be traced back to a failed education system.When people are educationally challenged they then become mentally challenged and their behavior will reflect those factors. Stupid people typically don’t know they’re stupid. That fact crosses all color barriers and ethnic groups.If we are to rebuild the Black Community, and by extension rebuild America as a goal, then education must be where we begin. There are too many stupid people making decisions that affect not only Black Americans, but all Americans.The Department of EducationMy Liberal bias is going to show. I hate stupid people and I hate people who encourage stupidity. Certain political positions in this country want to do away with the Department of Education and most of the advocates for that, are intellectually challenged anyway. They’re short sighted, closed-minded, opinionated yet ignorant, lazy, loud, intrusive, inconsistent and incapable of unbiased thought. The long reaching, deep seated, separation of people into classes and groups which is caused by some religious groups, has successfully chipped away at the core fabric of the systems of education in this country. Then people have the audacity to complain about the caliber of student that these schools push out to the world.There must be a Division within the Department of Education that focuses on urban and inner city schools. There needs to be significant investments in bringing the school buildings up to code, updating technology and fostering an environment of learning. They need to bring back art, music, home economics, vocational and sports programs that will allow kids who have no desire, or financial means to attend college to still get a quality education at the middle and high school levels.Educate the MassesNo matter where a person lives, education is critical. In the past, there have been different programs put in place to help disadvantaged students. As mentioned, disadvantaged students come from all backgrounds, not just Black ones. No students can really learn properly on an empty stomach. In the urban and poorer communities, there should be federally funded meal programs which benefit the financially disadvantaged students.Sexual education must be taught in schools. Children, especially young teens entering puberty, need to know about the ‘birds and the bee’s.” This isn’t 1955, 1965 or even 1985. It’s 2019. The stupid ignorance of pretending that somehow teaching kids about the human body, sexuality and reproduction are going to destroy the family unit. It won’t. The only thing that refraining from teaching sex education has achieved is unwanted and unplanned teen pregnancies. Reparations are teaching the children how to be responsible. Nobody is encouraging sex. Kids simply need to know.Beyond sex ed, wood shop, metal shop, cooking, sewing, typing and real-world training classes on skills that students will need in their working lives will narrow the gap between Blacks and other ethnic groups. Reparations are Financial Literacy classes.Not every Black kid will be a rapper, basketball or football star. They may think that will be a successful superstar, but reality will kick in one day and they’ll need to find meaningful work to support their families. Reparations is preparing the kids for the realities of life.College and Vocational Schools aren’t for everyone. Sometimes the military is a good option. There is no rule that you have to be some “Super Patriot” to join the military. Many poor kids from disadvantaged communities join the military as a way out of the communities they grew up in. The military gives them an opportunity to learn about the world, different cultures and get to work closely with people they may never interact with otherwise. Reparations is learning to work together and understanding people from different backgrounds.There are tons of academically successful Black kids. (Too bad I wasn’t one of them!) Reparations is reserving ROTC slots for the most academically gifted students which will enable them to join the Officer Corps in the military and not be just a participant, but be an actual leader. Military leaders oftentimes go on to successful political careers and wield much power and influence. Many people pay lip-service to the military but it is not a bad option and should be encouraged in schools all around the country.With a revamp of the educational system, the government should encourage service recruiters to actively encourage not only Black high school students but young Black college students as well, to pursue the Officer Corps in the military. Instead of 1 Black officer per 1000 servicemen, there should be 5 or 10. It should be a common sight. Being a military officer is not a White thing. I tire of seeing Black military members primarily as enlisted personnel and very few ascend to being a Black officer. Reparations is using the talents and natural abilities of people to get the best possible leadership.Frivolous SpendingGiving anyone a cash handout would not be a wise investment. Some will argue that it’s nobody’s place to tell them what to do with anything that is given to them. In my mind however, if there were to be some form of financial reparation, then is that a reward for the murder, oppression, subjugation, and mental destruction of an entire race of people. That equates to blood money. For what was done for hundreds of years and the long lasting damage that it caused, there is not enough money on this planet to buy back the history, soul, pride, and destination of a people.How many lottery winners go broke? Money will be spent and blown as if there were no tomorrow. Progress will not be made other than there will be people with a lot of material stuff. If you want to “give” someone something, give them something they can use to improve themselves because restoration can never be made. That’s why everything points back to education.Policing & CommunityThe police force in this country must be rebuilt. Historically, there has always been tension between law enforcement and communities that were seen as undesirable. Whether that community was Black, White, Italian, Hispanic or otherwise, police tactics oftentimes were developed to separate the majority populace from the minority.While policing has always been an admired occupation for many young boys, the realities of policing have changed over the years as people and cultures have changed.We see that many of the officers of the past who got into policing in order to serve their community no longer exist. Instead, you have officers who join the force in order to collect a decent salary without requiring a college degree in most instances, carry a gun, arrest criminals and have that sense of authority over others. Law enforcement is supposed to be a noble profession but as we watch the news, we must acknowledge that police forces around the country have been inundated with substandard officers.Many officers are nothing more than vigilantes. They may have been bullied at home by their parents or in school by other kids. They go through life with a desire to exact revenge for their treatment at the hands of others. The power of the badge gives them the ability to get their revenge on the groups that tormented them in their lives.The vigilantes that graduate from the Police Academies need to be weeded out. The police force is no place for the John Rambo’s or John Wick’s of the world. Regular psychological evaluations need to be conducted and instead of relocating bad cops to other areas, fire them. Imprison them if they commit crimes. The senseless killing of Black people must stop.I tire of seeing young Black men being put on the ground and beaten to a bloody pulp because they didn’t move quick enough to suit an officers liking. We must police the police. Everyone is accountable to someone in a law enforcement unit so there should be no questions or challenges to that idea. Accountability. Manage the enforcers.In the same line of thinking, the reality is that many Black men feel that they can “stand up for their rights” and argue, disrespect, mock, insult and say whatever they want to the police. With the current climate as it is here in 2019, that is usually not going to end well. Telling the officers to “suck your dick, fuck off, or the old “I pay your salary” isn’t going to win you any favors. Sometimes you need to compromise. Sometimes, you should listen. Sometimes, it’s best to just shut up and not say a word. After all, you do have a right to remain silent!Police officers should treat everyone the same. Standards and practices must be revised to ensure that policies and procedures are refined and enforced. Supervision is critical.The “good ol’ boy” promotion method doesn’t work. Being the Mayor’s favorite officer won’t work. What works is consistent performance of duties. Promote officers for their abilities and their accomplishments, not because of who they know. The police should not be the enemy of the people but the protectors.While I am critical of the state of policing in this country, at the same time, people must stop talking about all police officers as if they were dogs. There are many problem officers. There are many on the force who don’t deserve to be there. But there are also many that do car about their communities, their jobs and the people they serve. There are many loyal, caring, well-trained and disciplined officers out there. We need more of them and less of the others.Frivolous CallsReparations? Let’s start incarcerating White people, and others, that call the police on Black people in an attempt to get them arrested. That’s reparations! You’re angry because Black people are in the park having a party or barbecue? Yeah, well, get over it. Black kids are fundraising and you pull a gun on them, put them face down on the ground and tell them if they twitch, you’ll blow them away?There has been an uptick in Whites calling the police for Blacks doing typical things that everybody else does. Why is that? It’s ridiculous. It’s absurd. It’s time to start punishing the offenders.If White Americans are interested in truly removing the the perception of racism in every day life, they must begin to produce meaningful behaviors and actions to help in destroying these flaws permanently. Rewriting history, attempting to excuse or justify slavery and distorting facts will get you nowhere. It’s time to face the facts and accept what happened as being unfortunate but things can get better if all parties work together to improve things.I have more ideas but that will only infuriate even more of those idiots who want to dictate what their version of history is and they could care less if it is accurate or not.Prison Industrial ComplexIf anyone wants to discuss true reparations, then they need to address the plight of many men and women who are incarcerated in a Prison Industrial Complex who have been victimized by a “Justice” System which was mean to view anyone with melanin in their skin as being “Public Enemy #1.”A ground up review of all prison sentences must be conducted. Not everybody that is in prison is guilty. While not everybody in prison is innocent, the sentences and punishments that have been handed out, are unfair. There are White Americans who get probation for rape, sexual molestation and other serious crimes. A Black person gets caught with weed and they get locked away for 30 years.Sentencing guidelines must change. There needs to be a lot of clemency and sentence commutations.No, not every criminal, whether Black White or whatever color, is redeemable. But every person should have an independent re-evaluation of their charges, trial and sentence.Reparations is prison reform. Reparations is commutation of sentences for non-violent offenders.ConclusionIf you made it this far, I’m impressed. I gave my perspective. I am but one man. I can’t change the world by myself but I’m trying.Reparations, in monetary form, is not for me. My integrity is not for sale. The history of my people is not up for grabs. I may not be related to any slaves but the way that many view me, and those that look like me, in this country, ties me to their experiences.Educate my people. Give us the tools to move forward in a meaningful manner. My people; we have to take every opportunity that presents itself to educate ourselves and champion our own ways. Education doesn’t always mean college. Get a skill. Stop looking for a “j-o-b” and get a “c-a-r-e-e-r” Do what you love. Find your passion. Train our youth. Give back to the community.That will be our reparations.

The best answer I can muster is not written by me, but by 6 intrepid reporters telling it like it is. I’ve copied it all here for you, so that it gets read and not via a link:He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus - NY TimesAn examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own instincts led to a halting response.WASHINGTON — “Any way you cut it, this is going to be bad,” a senior medical adviser at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Dr. Carter Mecher, wrote on the night of Jan. 28, in an email to a group of public health experts scattered around the government and universities. “The projected size of the outbreak already seems hard to believe.”A week after the first coronavirus case had been identified in the United States, and six long weeks before President Trump finally took aggressive action to confront the danger the nation was facing — a pandemic that is now forecast to take tens of thousands of American lives — Dr. Mecher was urging the upper ranks of the nation’s public health bureaucracy to wake up and prepare for the possibility of far more drastic action.“You guys made fun of me screaming to close the schools,” he wrote to the group, which called itself “Red Dawn,” an inside joke based on the 1984 movie about a band of Americans trying to save the country after a foreign invasion. “Now I’m screaming, close the colleges and universities.”His was hardly a lone voice. Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action.The president, though, was slow to absorb the scale of the risk and to act accordingly, focusing instead on controlling the message, protecting gains in the economy and batting away warnings from senior officials. It was a problem, he said, that had come out of nowhere and could not have been foreseen.Even after Mr. Trump took his first concrete action at the end of January — limiting travel from China — public health often had to compete with economic and political considerations in internal debates, slowing the path toward belated decisions to seek more money from Congress, obtain necessary supplies, address shortfalls in testing and ultimately move to keep much of the nation at home.Unfolding as it did in the wake of his impeachment by the House and in the midst of his Senate trial, Mr. Trump’s response was colored by his suspicion of and disdain for what he viewed as the “Deep State” — the very people in his government whose expertise and long experience might have guided him more quickly toward steps that would slow the virus, and likely save lives.Decision-making was also complicated by a long-running dispute inside the administration over how to deal with China. The virus at first took a back seat to a desire not to upset Beijing during trade talks, but later the impulse to score points against Beijing left the world’s two leading powers further divided as they confronted one of the first truly global threats of the 21st century.The shortcomings of Mr. Trump’s performance have played out with remarkable transparency as part of his daily effort to dominate television screens and the national conversation.But dozens of interviews with current and former officials and a review of emails and other records revealed many previously unreported details and a fuller picture of the roots and extent of his halting response as the deadly virus spread:·The National Security Council office responsible for tracking pandemics received intelligence reports in early January predicting the spread of the virus to the United States, and within weeks was raising options like keeping Americans home from work and shutting down cities the size of Chicago. Mr. Trump would avoid such steps until March.·Despite Mr. Trump’s denial weeks later, he was told at the time about a Jan. 29 memo produced by his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, laying out in striking detail the potential risks of a coronavirus pandemic: as many as half a million deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses.·The health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, directly warned Mr. Trump of the possibility of a pandemic during a call on Jan. 30, the second warning he delivered to the president about the virus in two weeks. The president, who was on Air Force One while traveling for appearances in the Midwest, responded that Mr. Azar was being alarmist.·Mr. Azar publicly announced in February that the government was establishing a “surveillance” system in five American cities to measure the spread of the virus and enable experts to project the next hot spots. It was delayed for weeks. The slow start of that plan, on top of the well-documented failures to develop the nation’s testing capacity, left administration officials with almost no insight into how rapidly the virus was spreading. “We were flying the plane with no instruments,” one official said.·By the third week in February, the administration’s top public health experts concluded they should recommend to Mr. Trump a new approach that would include warning the American people of the risks and urging steps like social distancing and staying home from work. But the White House focused instead on messaging and crucial additional weeks went by before their views were reluctantly accepted by the president — time when the virus spread largely unimpeded.When Mr. Trump finally agreed in mid-March to recommend social distancing across the country, effectively bringing much of the economy to a halt, he seemed shellshocked and deflated to some of his closest associates. One described him as “subdued” and “baffled” by how the crisis had played out. An economy that he had wagered his re-election on was suddenly in shambles.He only regained his swagger, the associate said, from conducting his daily White House briefings, at which he often seeks to rewrite the history of the past several months. He declared at one point that he “felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” and insisted at another that he had to be a “cheerleader for the country,” as if that explained why he failed to prepare the public for what was coming.Mr. Trump’s allies and some administration officials say the criticism has been unfair. The Chinese government misled other governments, they say. And they insist that the president was either not getting proper information, or the people around him weren’t conveying the urgency of the threat. In some cases, they argue, the specific officials he was hearing from had been discredited in his eyes, but once the right information got to him through other channels, he made the right calls.“While the media and Democrats refused to seriously acknowledge this virus in January and February, President Trump took bold action to protect Americans and unleash the full power of the federal government to curb the spread of the virus, expand testing capacities and expedite vaccine development even when we had no true idea the level of transmission or asymptomatic spread,” said Judd Deere, a White House spokesman.There were key turning points along the way, opportunities for Mr. Trump to get ahead of the virus rather than just chase it. There were internal debates that presented him with stark choices, and moments when he could have chosen to ask deeper questions and learn more. How he handled them may shape his re-election campaign. They will certainly shape his legacy.The Containment IllusionBy the last week of February, it was clear to the administration’s public health team that schools and businesses in hot spots would have to close. But in the turbulence of the Trump White House, it took three more weeks to persuade the president that failure to act quickly to control the spread of the virus would have dire consequences.When Dr. Robert Kadlec, the top disaster response official at the Health and Human Services Department, convened the White House coronavirus task force on Feb. 21, his agenda was urgent. There were deep cracks in the administration’s strategy for keeping the virus out of the United States. They were going to have to lock down the country to prevent it from spreading. The question was: When?There had already been an alarming spike in new cases around the world and the virus was spreading across the Middle East. It was becoming apparent that the administration had botched the rollout of testing to track the virus at home, and a smaller-scale surveillance program intended to piggyback on a federal flu tracking system had also been stillborn.In Washington, the president was not worried, predicting that by April, “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” His White House had yet to ask Congress for additional funding to prepare for the potential cost of wide-scale infection across the country, and health care providers were growing increasingly nervous about the availability of masks, ventilators and other equipment.What Mr. Trump decided to do next could dramatically shape the course of the pandemic — and how many people would get sick and die.With that in mind, the task force had gathered for a tabletop exercise — a real-time version of a full-scale war gaming of a flu pandemic the administration had run the previous year. That earlier exercise, also conducted by Mr. Kadlec and called “Crimson Contagion,” predicted 110 million infections, 7.7 million hospitalizations and 586,000 deaths following a hypothetical outbreak that started in China.Facing the likelihood of a real pandemic, the group needed to decide when to abandon “containment” — the effort to keep the virus outside the U.S. and to isolate anyone who gets infected — and embrace “mitigation” to thwart the spread of the virus inside the country until a vaccine becomes available.Among the questions on the agenda, which was reviewed by The New York Times, was when the department’s secretary, Mr. Azar, should recommend that Mr. Trump take textbook mitigation measures “such as school dismissals and cancellations of mass gatherings,” which had been identified as the next appropriate step in a Bush-era pandemic plan.The exercise was sobering. The group — including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci of the National Institutes of Health; Dr. Robert R. Redfield of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Mr. Azar, who at that stage was leading the White House Task Force — concluded they would soon need to move toward aggressive social distancing, even at the risk of severe disruption to the nation’s economy and the daily lives of millions of Americans.If Dr. Kadlec had any doubts, they were erased two days later, when he stumbled upon an email from a researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology, who was among the group of academics, government physicians and infectious diseases doctors who had spent weeks tracking the outbreak in the Red Dawn email chain.A 20-year-old Chinese woman had infected five relatives with the virus even though she never displayed any symptoms herself. The implication was grave — apparently healthy people could be unknowingly spreading the virus — and supported the need to move quickly to mitigation.“Is this true?!” Dr. Kadlec wrote back to the researcher. “If so we have a huge whole on our screening and quarantine effort,” including a typo where he meant hole. Her response was blunt: “People are carrying the virus everywhere.”The following day, Dr. Kadlec and the others decided to present Mr. Trump with a plan titled “Four Steps to Mitigation,” telling the president that they needed to begin preparing Americans for a step rarely taken in United States history.But over the next several days, a presidential blowup and internal turf fights would sidetrack such a move. The focus would shift to messaging and confident predictions of success rather than publicly calling for a shift to mitigation.These final days of February, perhaps more than any other moment during his tenure in the White House, illustrated Mr. Trump’s inability or unwillingness to absorb warnings coming at him. He instead reverted to his traditional political playbook in the midst of a public health calamity, squandering vital time as the coronavirus spread silently across the country.Dr. Kadlec’s group wanted to meet with the president right away, but Mr. Trump was on a trip to India, so they agreed to make the case to him in person as soon as he returned two days later. If they could convince him of the need to shift strategy, they could immediately begin a national education campaign aimed at preparing the public for the new reality.A memo dated Feb. 14, prepared in coordination with the National Security Council and titled “U.S. Government Response to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus,” documented what more drastic measures would look like, including: “significantly limiting public gatherings and cancellation of almost all sporting events, performances, and public and private meetings that cannot be convened by phone. Consider school closures. Widespread ‘stay at home’ directives from public and private organizations with nearly 100% telework for some.”The memo did not advocate an immediate national shutdown, but said the targeted use of “quarantine and isolation measures” could be used to slow the spread in places where “sustained human-to-human transmission” is evident.Within 24 hours, before they got a chance to make their presentation to the president, the plan went awry.Mr. Trump was walking up the steps of Air Force One to head home from India on Feb. 25 when Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, publicly issued the blunt warning they had all agreed was necessary.But Dr. Messonnier had jumped the gun. They had not told the president yet, much less gotten his consent.On the 18-hour plane ride home, Mr. Trump fumed as he watched the stock market crash after Dr. Messonnier’s comments. Furious, he called Mr. Azar when he landed at around 6 a.m. on Feb. 26, raging that Dr. Messonnier had scared people unnecessarily. Already on thin ice with the president over a variety of issues and having overseen the failure to quickly produce an effective and widely available test, Mr. Azar would soon find his authority reduced.The meeting that evening with Mr. Trump to advocate social distancing was canceled, replaced by a news conference in which the president announced that the White House response would be put under the command of Vice President Mike Pence.The push to convince Mr. Trump of the need for more assertive action stalled. With Mr. Pence and his staff in charge, the focus was clear: no more alarmist messages. Statements and media appearances by health officials like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield would be coordinated through Mr. Pence’s office. It would be more than three weeks before Mr. Trump would announce serious social distancing efforts, a lost period during which the spread of the virus accelerated rapidly.Over nearly three weeks from Feb. 26 to March 16, the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States grew from 15 to 4,226. Since then, nearly half a million Americans have tested positive for the virus and authorities say hundreds of thousands more are likely infected.The China FactorThe earliest warnings about coronavirus got caught in the crosscurrents of the administration’s internal disputes over China. It was the China hawks who pushed earliest for a travel ban. But their animosity toward China also undercut hopes for a more cooperative approach by the world’s two leading powers to a global crisis.It was early January, and the call with a Hong Kong epidemiologist left Matthew Pottinger rattled.Mr. Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser and a hawk on China, took a blunt warning away from the call with the doctor, a longtime friend: A ferocious, new outbreak that on the surface appeared similar to the SARS epidemic of 2003 had emerged in China. It had spread far more quickly than the government was admitting to, and it wouldn’t be long before it reached other parts of the world.Mr. Pottinger had worked as a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic, and was still scarred by his experience documenting the death spread by that highly contagious virus.Now, seventeen years later, his friend had a blunt message: You need to be ready. The virus, he warned, which originated in the city of Wuhan, was being transmitted by people who were showing no symptoms — an insight that American health officials had not yet accepted. Mr. Pottinger declined through a spokesman to comment.It was one of the earliest warnings to the White House, and it echoed the intelligence reports making their way to the National Security Council. While most of the early assessments from the C.I.A. had little more information than was available publicly, some of the more specialized corners of the intelligence world were producing sophisticated and chilling warnings.In a report to the director of national intelligence, the State Department’s epidemiologist wrote in early January that the virus was likely to spread across the globe, and warned that the coronavirus could develop into a pandemic. Working independently, a small outpost of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Center for Medical Intelligence, came to the same conclusion. Within weeks after getting initial information about the virus early in the year, biodefense experts inside the National Security Council, looking at what was happening in Wuhan, started urging officials to think about what would be needed to quarantine a city the size of Chicago.By mid-January there was growing evidence of the virus spreading outside China. Mr. Pottinger began convening daily meetings about the coronavirus. He alerted his boss, Robert C. O’Brien, the national security adviser.The early alarms sounded by Mr. Pottinger and other China hawks were freighted with ideology — including a push to publicly blame China that critics in the administration say was a distraction as the coronavirus spread to Western Europe and eventually the United States.And they ran into opposition from Mr. Trump’s economic advisers, who worried a tough approach toward China could scuttle a trade deal that was a pillar of Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign.With his skeptical — some might even say conspiratorial — view of China’s ruling Communist Party, Mr. Pottinger initially suspected that President Xi Jinping’s government was keeping a dark secret: that the virus may have originated in one of the laboratories in Wuhan studying deadly pathogens. In his view, it might have even been a deadly accident unleashed on an unsuspecting Chinese population.During meetings and telephone calls, Mr. Pottinger asked intelligence agencies — including officers at the C.I.A. working on Asia and on weapons of mass destruction — to search for evidence that might bolster his theory.They didn’t have any evidence. Intelligence agencies did not detect any alarm inside the Chinese government that analysts presumed would accompany the accidental leak of a deadly virus from a government laboratory. But Mr. Pottinger continued to believe the coronavirus problem was far worse than the Chinese were acknowledging. Inside the West Wing, the director of the Domestic Policy Council, Joe Grogan, also tried to sound alarms that the threat from China was growing.Mr. Pottinger, backed by Mr. O’Brien, became one of the driving forces of a campaign in the final weeks of January to convince Mr. Trump to impose limits on travel from China — the first substantive step taken to impede the spread of the virus and one that the president has repeatedly cited as evidence that he was on top of the problem.In addition to the opposition from the economic team, Mr. Pottinger and his allies among the China hawks had to overcome initial skepticism from the administration’s public health experts.Travel restrictions were usually counterproductive to managing biological outbreaks because they prevented doctors and other much-needed medical help from easily getting to the affected areas, the health officials said. And such bans often cause infected people to flee, spreading the disease further.But on the morning of Jan. 30, Mr. Azar got a call from Dr. Fauci, Dr. Redfield and others saying they had changed their minds. The World Health Organization had declared a global public health emergency and American officials had discovered the first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission inside the United States.The economic team, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, continued to argue that there were big risks in taking a provocative step toward China and moving to curb global travel. After a debate, Mr. Trump came down on the side of the hawks and the public health team. The limits on travel from China were publicly announced on Jan. 31.Still, Mr. Trump and other senior officials were wary of further upsetting Beijing. Besides the concerns about the impact on the trade deal, they knew that an escalating confrontation was risky because the United States relies heavily on China for pharmaceuticals and the kinds of protective equipment most needed to combat the coronavirus.But the hawks kept pushing in February to take a critical stance toward China amid the growing crisis. Mr. Pottinger and others — including aides to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — pressed for government statements to use the term “Wuhan Virus.”Mr. Pompeo tried to hammer the anti-China message at every turn, eventually even urging leaders of the Group of 7 industrialized countries to use “Wuhan virus” in a joint statement.Others, including aides to Mr. Pence, resisted taking a hard public line, believing that angering Beijing might lead the Chinese government to withhold medical supplies, pharmaceuticals and any scientific research that might ultimately lead to a vaccine.Mr. Trump took a conciliatory approach through the middle of March, praising the job Mr. Xi was doing.That changed abruptly, when aides informed Mr. Trump that a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman had publicly spun a new conspiracy about the origins of Covid-19: that it was brought to China by U.S. Army personnel who visited the country last October.Mr. Trump was furious, and he took to his favorite platform to broadcast a new message. On March 16, he wrote on Twitter that “the United States will be powerfully supporting those industries, like Airlines and others, that are particularly affected by the Chinese Virus.”Mr. Trump’s decision to escalate the war of words undercut any remaining possibility of broad cooperation between the governments to address a global threat. It remains to be seen whether that mutual suspicion will spill over into efforts to develop treatments or vaccines, both areas where the two nations are now competing.One immediate result was a free-for-all across the United States, with state and local governments and hospitals bidding on the open market for scarce but essential Chinese-made products. When the state of Massachusetts managed to procure 1.2 million masks, it fell to the owner of the New England Patriots, Robert K. Kraft, a Trump ally, to cut through extensive red tape on both sides of the Pacific to send his own plane to pick them up.The Consequences of ChaosThe chaotic culture of the Trump White House contributed to the crisis. A lack of planning and a failure to execute, combined with the president’s focus on the news cycle and his preference for following his gut rather than the data cost time, and perhaps lives.Inside the West Wing, Mr. Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, was widely seen as quick-tempered, self-important and prone to butting in. He is among the most outspoken of China hawks and in late January was clashing with the administration’s health experts over limiting travel from China.So it elicited eye rolls when, after initially being prevented from joining the coronavirus task force, he circulated a memo on Jan. 29urging Mr. Trump to impose the travel limits, arguing that failing to confront the outbreak aggressively could be catastrophic, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses.The uninvited message could not have conflicted more with the president’s approach at the time of playing down the severity of the threat. And when aides raised it with Mr. Trump, he responded that he was unhappy that Mr. Navarro had put his warning in writing.From the time the virus was first identified as a concern, the administration’s response was plagued by the rivalries and factionalism that routinely swirl around Mr. Trump and, along with the president’s impulsiveness, undercut decision making and policy development.Faced with the relentless march of a deadly pathogen, the disagreements and a lack of long-term planning had significant consequences. They slowed the president’s response and resulted in problems with execution and planning, including delays in seeking money from Capitol Hill and a failure to begin broad surveillance testing.The efforts to shape Mr. Trump’s view of the virus began early in January, when his focus was elsewhere: the fallout from his decision to kill Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, Iran’s security mastermind; his push for an initial trade deal with China; and his Senate impeachment trial, which was about to begin.Even after Mr. Azar first briefed him about the potential seriousness of the virus during a phone call on Jan. 18 while the president was at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Mr. Trump projected confidence that it would be a passing problem.“We have it totally under control,” he told an interviewer a few days later while attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. “It’s going to be just fine.”Back in Washington, voices outside of the White House peppered Mr. Trump with competing assessments about what he should do and how quickly he should act.The efforts to sort out policy behind closed doors were contentious and sometimes only loosely organized.That was the case when the National Security Council convened a meeting on short notice on the afternoon of Jan. 27. The Situation Room was standing room only, packed with top White House advisers, low-level staffers, Mr. Trump’s social media guru, and several cabinet secretaries. There was no checklist about the preparations for a possible pandemic, which would require intensive testing, rapid acquisition of protective gear, and perhaps serious limitations on Americans’ movements.Instead, after a 20-minute description by Mr. Azar of his department’s capabilities, the meeting was jolted when Stephen E. Biegun, the newly installed deputy secretary of state, announced plans to issue a “level four” travel warning, strongly discouraging Americans from traveling to China. The room erupted into bickering.A few days later, on the evening of Jan. 30, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff at the time, and Mr. Azar called Air Force One as the president was making the final decision to go ahead with the restrictions on China travel. Mr. Azar was blunt, warning that the virus could develop into a pandemic and arguing that China should be criticized for failing to be transparent.Mr. Trump rejected the idea of criticizing China, saying the country had enough to deal with. And if the president’s decision on the travel restrictions suggested that he fully grasped the seriousness of the situation, his response to Mr. Azar indicated otherwise.Stop panicking, Mr. Trump told him.That sentiment was present throughout February, as the president’s top aides reached for a consistent message but took few concrete steps to prepare for the possibility of a major public health crisis.During a briefing on Capitol Hill on Feb. 5, senators urged administration officials to take the threat more seriously. Several asked if the administration needed additional money to help local and state health departments prepare.Derek Kan, a senior official from the Office of Management and Budget, replied that the administration had all the money it needed, at least at that point, to stop the virus, two senators who attended the briefing said.“Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, wrote in a tweetshortly after. “Bottom line: they aren’t taking this seriously enough.”The administration also struggled to carry out plans it did agree on. In mid-February, with the effort to roll out widespread testing stalled, Mr. Azar announced a plan to repurpose a flu-surveillance system in five major cities to help track the virus among the general population. The effort all but collapsed even before it got started as Mr. Azar struggled to win approval for $100 million in funding and the C.D.C. failed to make reliable tests available.The number of infections in the United States started to surge through February and early March, but the Trump administration did not move to place large-scale orders for masks and other protective equipment, or critical hospital equipment, such as ventilators. The Pentagon sat on standby, awaiting any orders to help provide temporary hospitals or other assistance.As February gave way to March, the president continued to be surrounded by divided factions even as it became clearer that avoiding more aggressive steps was not tenable.Mr. Trump had agreed to give an Oval Office address on the evening of March 11 announcing restrictions on travel from Europe, where the virus was ravaging Italy. But responding to the views of his business friends and others, he continued to resist calls for social distancing, school closures and other steps that would imperil the economy.But the virus was already multiplying across the country — and hospitals were at risk of buckling under the looming wave of severely ill people, lacking masks and other protective equipment, ventilators and sufficient intensive care beds. The question loomed over the president and his aides after weeks of stalling and inaction: What were they going to do?The approach that Mr. Azar and others had planned to bring to him weeks earlier moved to the top of the agenda. Even then, and even by Trump White House standards, the debate over whether to shut down much of the country to slow the spread was especially fierce.Always attuned to anything that could trigger a stock market decline or an economic slowdown that could hamper his re-election effort, Mr. Trump also reached out to prominent investors like Stephen A. Schwarzman, the chief executive of Blackstone Group, a private equity firm.“Everybody questioned it for a while, not everybody, but a good portion questioned it,” Mr. Trump said earlier this month. “They said, let’s keep it open. Let’s ride it.”In a tense Oval Office meeting, when Mr. Mnuchin again stressed that the economy would be ravaged, Mr. O’Brien, the national security adviser, who had been worried about the virus for weeks, sounded exasperated as he told Mr. Mnuchin that the economy would be destroyed regardless if officials did nothing.Soon after the Oval Office address, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and a trusted sounding board inside the White House, visited Mr. Trump, partly at the urging of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. Dr. Gottlieb’s role was to impress upon the president how serious the crisis could become. Mr. Pence, by then in charge of the task force, also played a key role at that point in getting through to the president about the seriousness of the moment in a way that Mr. Azar had not.But in the end, aides said, it was Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the veteran AIDS researcher who had joined the task force, who helped to persuade Mr. Trump. Soft-spoken and fond of the kind of charts and graphs Mr. Trump prefers, Dr. Birx did not have the rough edges that could irritate the president. He often told people he thought she was elegant.On Monday, March 16, Mr. Trump announced new social distancing guidelines, saying they would be in place for two weeks. The subsequent economic disruptions were so severe that the president repeatedly suggested that he wanted to lift even those temporary restrictions. He frequently asked aides why his administration was still being blamed in news coverage for the widespread failures involving testing, insisting the responsibility had shifted to the states.During the last week in March, Kellyanne Conway, a senior White House adviser involved in task force meetings, gave voice to concerns other aides had. She warned Mr. Trump that his wished-for date of Easter to reopen the country likely couldn’t be accomplished. Among other things, she told him, he would end up being blamed by critics for every subsequent death caused by the virus.Within days, he watched images on television of a calamitous situation at Elmhurst Hospital Center, miles from his childhood home in Queens, N.Y., where 13 people had died from the coronavirus in 24 hours.He left the restrictions in place.