President Obama On Protests: ‘There’s A Consequence To Indifference’

 In a deeply personal response to outbreaks of racially motivated protests, President Barack Obama on Monday blamed a lack of opportunity in minority communities and harsher treatment of black and Hispanic men by police for fueling a sense of “unfairness and powerlessness.”
The country’s first black president called for a nationwide mobilization to reverse inequalities and said the cause will remain a mission for the rest of his presidency and his life. “There are consequences to indifference,” Obama said.
Helping launch a foundation to assist young minorities, Obama said the catalysts of protests in Ferguson, Missouri, and in Baltimore were the deaths of young black men and “a feeling that law is not always applied evenly in this country.”
“They experience being treated differently by law enforcement — in stops and in arrests, and in charges and incarcerations,” Obama said. “The statistics are clear, up and down the criminal justice system. There’s no dispute.”
The new organization, My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, is an outgrowth of Obama’s year-old My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which has focused on federal government policies and grants designed to increase access to education and jobs.
While the effort predates the tensions in Baltimore that erupted after the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody, the significance of the new private-sector alliance has been magnified by the spotlight the riots placed on low-income minority neighborhoods.
“Folks living in those communities, and especially young people living in those communities, could use some help to change those odds,” Obama said.
Obama repeatedly drove home the point during his 10-hour visit to New York, echoing the same themes from his speech at Lehman College in the Bronx to high-dollar Democratic Party fundraisers in Manhattan to an appearance on CBS’ “Late Show with David Letterman.”
“For far too long, for decades, we have a situation where too many communities don’t have a relationship of trust with the police,” he told Letterman. He said he wants young minority men in particular to know “we’re going to invest in you before you have problems with the police, before there’s the kind of crisis we see in Baltimore.”
He tied the call for justice with an economic message for the 60 donors who paid $10,000 to see him at an expansive, art-filled Upper East Side apartment — including actor Wendell Pierce, who played a Baltimore police detective working in drug-ridden projects on “The Wire.”
“If we are going to be successful over the long haul, if we are going to win what will be a very competitive 21st Century, we’ve got to have everybody on the field,” Obama said, adding the economy “can’t leave entire communities behind