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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA LEHMAN COLLEGE REMARKS - STIX
05/04/2015
ABC
DCU007491
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA DELIVERS REMARKS PROMOTING HIS MY BROTHERS KEEPER ALLIANCE VOLUNTEER PROGRAM AT LEHMAN COLLEGE IN BRONX, NEW YORK - STIX President Barack Obama remarks at My Brother's Keeper event at Lehman College in New York DC Slug: 1400 WH NY PATH1 RS33 73 AR: 16x9 Disc # 677 NYRS: WASH3 (4523) OBAMA: Hello, New York (APPLAUSE) Give Darnel a big round of applause for that introduction (APPLAUSE) Thank you so much Thank you Everybody please have a seat We are so proud of Darnel We want to thank him for being such a great role model for other students here in New York and around the country I want to give a shout out to a friend of mine, who happens to be your assemblyman, Michael Blake (APPLAUSE) Where's Michael? He was around here somewhere There he is You got to stand up, Michael (LAUGHTER) We're still teaching him about politics (APPLAUSE) When the president introduces you, you gotta stand up (LAUGHTER) Get some TV time So Mike grew up in tough circumstances as well He worked hard, went to a good college He joined my campaign, worked in the White House Now, he's in public office to make sure that other young people like him have every chance in the world, so we couldn't be prouder of him It's -- it's great to see (APPLAUSE) So I'm getting practice from Malia and Sasha leaving home I've got all these incredible young people who worked on the White House staff who are now doing all kinds of great things I want to thank all the members of Congress and elected officials who are in the house You've got a couple of proud Lehman graduates Eliot Engel (APPLAUSE) Where's Eliot? There, he is And Jose Serrano (APPLAUSE) 14:58:47 And we've got some more folks We've got three other folks from the New York delegation Gregory Meek (sic) (APPLAUSE) The always dapper Charlie Rangel (APPLAUSE) The outstanding Yvette Clarke (APPLAUSE) And visiting from Florida, Frederica Wilson (APPLAUSE) 14:59:17 But they all share the same passion that I do, and that is making sure every young person in this country has opportunity That's why we're all here today, because we believe in the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you came you from, no matter what your circumstances were, if you work hard, if you take responsibility, then America's a place where you can make something of your lives 14:59:46 And I want to thank Lehman for hosting us here today and our community college system, the CUNY system, our public-education institutions They're all pathways for success, and we're very proud of 0 OBAMA: Hello, New York (APPLAUSE) Give Darnel a big round of applause for that introduction (APPLAUSE) Thank you so much Thank you Everybody please have a seat We are so proud of Darnel We want to thank him for being such a great role model for other students here in New York and around the country I want to give a shout out to a friend of mine, who happens to be your assemblyman, Michael Blake (APPLAUSE) Where's Michael? He was around here somewhere There he is You got to stand up, Michael (LAUGHTER) We're still teaching him about politics (APPLAUSE) When the president introduces you, you gotta stand up (LAUGHTER) Get some TV time So Mike grew up in tough circumstances as well He worked hard, went to a good college He joined my campaign, worked in the White House Now, he's in public office to make sure that other young people like him have every chance in the world, so we couldn't be prouder of him It's -- it's great to see (APPLAUSE) So I'm getting practice from Malia and Sasha leaving home I've got all these incredible young people who worked on the White House staff who are now doing all kinds of great things I want to thank all the members of Congress and elected officials who are in the house You've got a couple of proud Lehman graduates Eliot Engel (APPLAUSE) Where's Eliot? There, he is And Jose Serrano (APPLAUSE) And we've got some more folks We've got three other folks from the New York delegation Gregory Meek (sic) (APPLAUSE) The always dapper Charlie Rangel (APPLAUSE) The outstanding Yvette Clarke (APPLAUSE) And visiting from Florida, Frederica Wilson (APPLAUSE) But they all share the same passion that I do, and that is making sure every young person in this country has opportunity That's why we're all here today, because we believe in the idea that no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, no matter where you came you from, no matter what your circumstances were, if you work hard, if you take responsibility, then America's a place where you can make something of your lives And I want to thank Lehman for hosting us here today and our community college system, the CUNY system, our public-education institutions They're all pathways for success, and we're very proud of what they do 15:00:04 You know, everything that we've done since I've been president past six and a half years, from rescuing the economy to giving more Americans access to affordable health care to reforming our schools for all of our kids, it's been pursuit -- it's been in pursuit of that one goal, creating opportunity for everybody We can't guarantee everybody's success But we do strive to guarantee an equal shot for everybody who's willing to work for it But what we've also understood for too long is that some communities have consistently had the odds stacked against them There's a tragic history in this country that has made it tougher for some And folks living in those communities, and especially young people living in those communities, could use some help to change those odds It's true of some rural communities where there's chronic poverty It's true of some manufacturing communities that have suffered after factories they depended on closed their doors It's true for young people of color, especially boys and young men 15:01:27 You all know the numbers By almost every measure, the life chances of the average young man of color is worse than his peers Those opportunity gaps begin early, often at birth, and they compound over time, becoming harder and harder to bridge, making too many young men and women feel like no matter how hard they try, they may never achieve their dreams And that sense of unfairness and of powerlessness, of people not hearing their voices, that's helped fuel some of the protests we've seen in places like Baltimore and Ferguson and right here in New York 15:02:14 The catalysts of those protests were the tragic deaths of young men and a feeling that law is not always applied evenly in this country In too many places in this country, black boys and black men, Latino boys, Latino men, they experience being treated differently by law enforcement, in stops and in arrests and in charges and in incarcerations The statistics are clear up and down the criminal justice system There's no dispute That's why one of the many things we did to address these issues was to put together a task force on community policing And this task force was made up of law enforcement and of community activists, including some who had led protests in Ferguson, some who had led protests here in New York, young people whose voices needed to be heard And, what was remarkable was law enforcement and police chiefs and sheriffs and county officials working with these young people, they came up with concrete proposals that if implemented would rebuild trust and help law enforcement officers do their jobs even better, and keep them and their communities even safer 15:03:31 And what was clear from this task force was the recognition that the overwhelming majority of police officers are good and honest and fair and care deeply about their communities And they put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe And their loved ones wait and worry until they come through the door at the end of their shift As many of you know, New York's finest lost one of its own today, Officer Brian Moore, who was shot in the line of duty on Saturday night, passed away earlier today He came from a family of police officers And the family of fellow officers he joined in the NYPD and across the country deserve our gratitude and our prayers, not just today but every day They've got a tough job (APPLAUSE) Which is why in addressing the issues in Baltimore or Ferguson or New York, the point I made was that if we're just looking at policing, we're looking at it too narrowly If we ask the police to simply contain and control problems that we ourselves have been unwilling to invest and solve, that's not fair to the communities It's not fair to the police 15:04:56 What we gathered here to talk about today is something that goes deeper than policing It speaks to who we are as a nation and what we're willing to do to make sure that equality of opportunity is not an empty word Across the country and in parts of New York and parts of New Jersey and parts of my home town in Chicago, there are communities that don't have enough jobs, don't have enough investment, don't have enough opportunity You've got communities with 30 or 40 or 50 percent unemployment And they've been struggling long before the economic crisis of 2007-2008 Communities without enough role models; communities where too many men who could otherwise be leaders, who could provide guidance for young people, who could be good fathers and good neighbors and good fellow citizens, are languishing in prison over minor nonviolent drug offenses 15:05:57 There's no shortage of people telling you who and what is to blame for the plight of these communities But I'm not interested in blame I'm interested in responsibility and I'm interested in results And that's why (APPLAUSE) 15:06:20 that's why we've partnered with cities to get more kids access to quality early childhood education, no matter who they are or where they're born It's why we've partnered with cities to create promise zones to give a booster shot to opportunity That's why we've invested in ideas from support for new moms to summer jobs for young people, to helping more young people afford a college education And that's why over a year ago, we launched something we call My Brother's Keeper, an initiative to address those persistent opportunity gaps and ensure that all of our young people, but particularly young men of color, have a chance to go as far as their dreams will take them It's an idea that we pursued in the wake of Trayvon Martin's death because we wanted the message sent from the White House in a sustained way that his life mattered, that the lives of the young men who are here today matter, that we care about your future not just sometimes, but all the time, In every community in America, there are young people with incredible drive and talent and they just don't have the same kinds of chances that somebody like me had They're just as talented as me, just as smart They don't get a chance And because everyone has a part to play in this process, we brought everybody together We brought business leaders and faith leaders, mayors, philanthropists, educators, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, actors -- all united around the simple idea of giving all our young people the tools they need to achieve their full potential And we were determined not to just do a feel-good exercise, to write a report that nobody would read You know, to do some announcement and then once the TV camera has gone away and, you know, there weren't protests or riots, then somehow we went back to business as usual We wanted something sustained And for more than a year, we've been working with experts to identify some of the key milestones that matter most in every young person's life, from whether they enter school ready to learn, to whether they graduate ready for a career Are they getting suspended in school? Can we intervene there? Are they in danger of falling into the criminal justice system? Can we catch them before they do? Key indicators that we know will make a difference 15:09:07 If a child's reading by the third grade at grade level, we know they've got a chance of doing better If they aren't involved with the criminal justice system and aren't suspended while they're in school, we know they've got a chance of doing better So there are certain things that we knew would make a difference And we've looked at which programs and policies actually work in intervening at those key periods Early childhood education works Job apprenticeship programs work Certain mentoring programs work And we've identified which strategies make a difference in the lives of young people like mentoring or violence prevention and intervention And because we knew this couldn't be the work of just the federal government, we challenged every community in the country -- big cities, small towns, rural countries, tribal nations -- to publicly commit to implementing strategies to help all young people succeed And as a result, we've already got more than 200 communities across the country who are focused on this issue They're on board and they're doing great work They're sharing best practices They're sharing ideas All of this has happened just in the last year 15:10:15 And the response we've gotten in such a short amount of time -- the enthusiasm and the passion we've seen from folks all around the country proves how much people care about this You know, sometimes politics may be cynical The debate in Washington may be cynical But when you get on the ground and you talks to folks, folks care about this They know that how well we do as a nation depends on whether our young people are succeeding That's our future workforce They know that if you've got African-American or Latino men here in New York who, instead of going to jail, they're going to college, those are going to be taxpayers They're going to help build our communities They will make our communities safer They aren't part of the problem They're potentially part of the solution if we treat them as such So we've made enormous progress over the last year But today, after months of great work on the part of a whole lot of people, we're taking another step forward with people from the private sector coming together in a big way We're here for the launch of the My Brother's Keeper Alliance, which is a new nonprofit organization of private sector organizations and companies that have committed themselves to continue the work of opening doors for young people, all our young people, long after I've left office (APPLAUSE) It's a big deal I want to thank the former CEO of Deloitte, Joe Echevarria, who's been involved for a long time He has taken the lead on this alliance Joe, stand up You've done an incredible job (APPLAUSE) 15:12:15 Just like the My Brother's Keeper overall effort that we launched last year, Joe and My Brother's Keeper's Alliance, they're all about getting results They've set clear goals to hold themselves accountable for getting those results Doubling the percentage of boys and young men of color who read at grade level by the third grade Increasing their high school graduation rates (APPLAUSE) by 20 percent Getting 50 more -- 50,000 more of those young men into post-secondary education or training 15:12:45 They've already announced $80 million in commitments to make this happen, and that is just the beginning And they've got a great team of young people who helped to work on this, a lot of them from Deloitte We appreciate them so much We're very proud of the great work that they did But here's what the business leaders who are here today -- and Joe certainly subscribes to this -- will tell you They're not doing this out of charity 15:13:07 The organizations that are represented here ranging -- as varied as -- from Spring to BET -- they're not doing it just to assuage society's guilt They're doing this because they know that making sure all of our young people have the opportunity to succeed is an economic imperative 15:13:37 These young men, all our youth, are part of our workforce If we don't make sure that our young people are safe and healthy and educated and prepared for the jobs of tomorrow, our businesses won't have the workers they need to compete in the 21st century global economy Our society will lose in terms of productivity and potential America won't be operating at full capacity, and that hurts all of us 15:14:03 So they -- they know that there's an economic rationale for making this investment But, frankly, this is also about more than just economics It's about values It's about who we are as a people 15:14:20 You know, Joe grew up about a mile from here, in the Bronx And as he and I were sitting there listening to some incredible young men in a round table discussion, many of them from this community, their stories were our stories So for Joe and I, this is personal Because in these young men, we see ourselves 15:14:50 The stakes are clear, and these stakes are high At the end of the day, what kind of society do we want to have? What kind of country do we want to be? It's not enough to celebrate the ideals that we're built on: liberty for all and justice for all and equality for all Those can't just be words on paper; the work of every generation is to make those ideals mean something concrete in the lives of our children, all of our children And we won't get there as long as kids in Baltimore or Ferguson or New York or Appalachia or the Mississippi delta or the pine ridge reservation believe that their lives are somehow worth less We won't get there when we have impoverished communities that have been stripped away of opportunity And we're in the -- in the richest nation on Earth Children are born into abject poverty We won't be living up to our ideals when their parents are struggling with substance abuse or are in prison or unemployed and when fathers are absent and schools are substandard and jobs are scarce and drugs are plentiful We won't get there when there are communities where a young man is less likely to end up in college than jail, or dead, and feels like his country expects nothing else of him 15:16:25 America's future depends on us caring about this If we don't, then we will just keep on going through the same cycles of periodic conflict We ask police to go into communities where there's no hope Eventually, something happens because of the tensions between society and these communities, and the police are just on the front lines of that And people tweet outrage, and the TV cameras come, and they focus more on somebody setting fire to something or turning over a car than the peaceful protests and the thoughtful discussions that are taking place 15:17:15 And then some will argue, Well, all these social programs don't make a difference, and we cast blame, and politicians talk about poverty and inequality and then gut policies that help alleviate poverty or reverse inequality (APPLAUSE) 15:17:42 And then we wait for the next outbreak or problem to flare up, and we go through the same pattern all over again, so that in effect, we do nothing 15:18:00 There are consequences to inaction, there are consequences to indifference, and they reverberate far beyond the walls of the projects, the borders of the barrio the roads of the reservation They sap us of our strength as a nation It means we're not as good as we could be And over time, it wears us out Over time it weakens our nation as a whole 15:18:35 The good news is it doesn't have to be this way We can have the courage to change We can make a difference We can remember that these kids are our kids For these are all our children, Jane Baldwin once wrote We will all profit by or pay for whatever they become And that's what My Brother's Keeper is about That's what this alliance is about And we are in this for the long haul We're going to keep doing our work at the White House on these issues Sometimes, it won't be a lot of fanfare I notice we don't always get a lot of reporting on this issue when there's not a crisis in some neighborhood But we're just going to keep on plugging away And this will remain a mission for me and for Michelle not just for the rest of my presidency but for the rest of my life (APPLAUSE) 15:19:44 And the reason's simple, like I said before I know it's true for Joe It's true for John Legend, who was part of our roundtable It's true for Alonzo Mourning, who's here as part of our board We see ourselves in these young men I grew up without a dad I grew up lost sometimes and adrift, not having a sense of a clear path The only difference between me and a lot of the other young men in this neighborhood and all across the country is that I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving And at some critical points, I had some people who cared enough about me to give me a second chance or a third chance or give me a little guidance when I needed it Or to open up a door that might otherwise have been closed I was lucky Alex Santos is lucky too Where's Alex? Alex is here Stand up, Alex (APPLAUSE) So, Alex was born in Puerto Rico, grew up in Brooklyn and the Bronx, in some tough neighborhoods When he was 11 he saw his mom's best friend, a man he respected and looked up to, shot and killed His older brothers dropped out of school, got caught up in drugs and violence So Alex didn't see a whole lot of options for himself, couldn't envision a path to a better future He then dropped out of school But then his mom went back to school and got her GED She set an example That inspired Alex to go back and get his GED Actually, it's more like she stayed on him until he went back (LAUGHTER) And I know, because just like I was lucky, I also had a mom who used to get on my case about my studies, so I could relate 15:21:48 But this is what Alex says about his mom: She made me realize that no matter what, there's a second chance in life So today Alex is getting his GED He's developed a passion for sports His dream is to one day work with kids as a coach and set an example for them He says he never thought he could go to college Now he believes he can All Alex wants to be is a good role model for his younger brothers, Carlos and John, who are bright and hardworking and doing well in school And he says, They matter so much to my life and I matter to theirs So Alex and his brothers and all the young people here, all the young ones who are out there struggling, the simple point to make is you matter You matter to us 15:22:40 It was interesting during the round table, we asked these young men, incredible, gifted young man, like Darynel Asked them what advice would you give us? And they talked about mentor programs and they talked about, you know, counseling programs and guidance programs in schools But one young man, Malaki, he just talked about we should talk about love (APPLAUSE) Because -- because Malaki-- because Maliki and I have shared the fact that our dad wasn't around and that sometimes we wondered why he wasn't around and what had happened 15:23:28 But, really, that's what this comes down to is, do we love these kids? (APPLAUSE) 15:23:39 See, if -- if we feel like because they don't look like us or they don't talk like us or they don't live in the same neighborhood as us, that they're different, that they can't learn or they don't deserve better or it's OK if their schools are run down Or it's OK if the police are given a mission just to contain them rather than to encourage them Then it's not surprising that we're gonna lose a lot of them 15:24:33 But that's not the kind of country I want to live in That's not what America's about So my message to Alex and Malaki and Darynel and to all the young men out there and young boys who aren't in this room haven't yet gotten that helping hand, haven't yet gotten that guidance, I want you to know you matter You matter to us You matter to each other There's nothing, not a single thing, that's more important to the future of America than whether or not you and young people all across this country can achieve their dreams And we are one people and we need each other We should love every single one of our kids, and we should show that love, not just give lip service to it, not just talk about it in church and then ignore it Not just you know, have a seminar about it, and not deliver It's hard We've got an accumulation of not just decades, but in some cases centuries of trauma that we're having to overcome But if Alex is able to overcome what he's been through, then we as a society should be able to overcome what we've been through If Alex can put the past behind him and look towards the future, we should be able to do the same So, I'm going to keep on fighting and everybody here is going to keep on fighting to make sure that all of our kids have the opportunity to make of their lives what they will 15:26:25 Today is just the beginning We're going to keep at this for you, the young people of America, for your generation and for all generations to come So thank you God bless you God bless all of you God bless America (APPLAUSE)
Archived Unity File
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