President Barack Obama delivered a compelling speech on Monday, April 27 at Lehman College in New York City. Obama spoke about a new privately-funded expansion of his My Brother’s Keeper initiative. My Brother’s Keeper works to provide opportunities for young men of color in underdeveloped areas.

“This will remain a mission for me and Michelle not just for the rest of my presidency, but for the rest of my life,” Obama said. “I grew up without a dad. I grew up lost sometimes and adrift,” he added, saying that the only difference between him and some of the young men enrolled in one of his programs was that, “I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving.”

The president then went on to speak candidly about the riots taking place in Baltimore. Obama acknowledged that “a sense of unfairness and powerlessness” were a contributing factor to the Baltimore protests. The president also reaffirmed that young men of color are “treated differently” by law enforcement on a regular basis.

In economic terms, 80 million dollars have been invested in the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance; some contributing parties are BET and Sprint. The organization’s goals include getting 50,000 more students of color into secondary education and doubling the amount of black children who read by the fourth grade.

Obama argued that if we continue to excommunicate and jail black and Latino youths, “our society will lose in terms of productivity and potential” and said that “America will not be operating at full capacity” if something doesn’t change soon.

Too many young men of color are “languishing in prison over minor non-violent drug offenses,” the president said.

He spoke out against people who “tweet outrage” and “cast blame,” but don’t follow up with any solutions to get to the root cause of the problem.

“We don’t always get a lot of reporting on this issue when there’s not a crisis in some neighborhood,” Obama said. But he added, “We are in this for the long haul.”

Information provided by Rolling Stone Magazine