President Barack Obama delivered a poignant personal promise to the American people Monday , vowing to continue to fight to improve racial tensions in America , given the `` particular experiences '' he brings to the office . `` I 'm going to stay on this , '' the President said Monday in an interview with BET , a network that reaches a predominately young African-American audience . `` Not only am I going to stay on it ... but hopefully the entire society says , 'Let 's finally try to make some real progress on this . ' '' Once criticized for shying away from the topic of race early on in his presidency , Obama has recently taken a more active role in sharing how his personal experiences help him to empathize with all kinds of people affected by the recent protests on racial tensions -- from protesters , to victims , to law enforcement officers , to families , and most importantly , to black youth . In his interview with BET 's `` 106 & Park , '' the President cited a meeting he had with nonviolent protesters Monday -- between ages 18-25 . For him , he says , listening to young African-Americans describe their own experiences of being stopped for no reason , or being unjustly labeled as suspicious , strikes a personal chord . `` My mind went back to what it was like for me when I was 17 , 18 , 20 , '' the President said . `` As I told them , not only do I hear the pain and frustration of being subjected to that kind of constant suspicion , part of the reason I got into politics was to figure out how can I bridge some of those gaps and understandings so that the larger country understands this is not just a black problem or a brown problem , this is an American problem . '' The President also made a point to invoke Attorney General Eric Holder 's race and civil rights record , saying , `` He 's got a similar set of stories and experiences he can share . '' While most of the protests across the country have been relatively peaceful , many of the gatherings have caused traffic delays and street closures . According the President , those are small prices to pay in order to achieve the larger goal of ending racial tensions in America . `` A country 's conscience sometimes has to be triggered by some inconvenience , '' the President said . `` As long as they 're peaceful , I think they 're necessary . When they turn violent then they 're counter-productive . '' As he noted in the first half of his interview , teased Sunday , the clear video evidence available in the chokehold death of Eric Garner , a black man , in Staten Island in July has helped the broader public come to believe there are racial inequalities in the criminal justice system in a way the shooting death of Michael Brown , also black , in Ferguson , Missouri , in August , did not . In both cases , grand juries failed to indict the white police officers responsible for their deaths . `` It used to be folks would say , 'Well , maybe blacks are exaggerating . Some of these situations are n't what they describe , ' '' Obama said . `` What we 've now seen on television -- now for everybody to see -- gives us the opportunity to finally have the conversation , that you know , has been a long time coming . '' The President will be interviewed by both Univision and Telemundo on Tuesday , both of which are networks that target primarily Latino audiences . In his interview Monday , Obama suggested that people who are n't `` African-American or Latino '' view the deaths of both Michael Ferguson and Eric Garner as `` tragedies . ''
President Barack Obama promised , ` ` I am going to stay on this , '' regarding race relations during a BET interview on Monday . Obama also supports peaceful protesting in the wake of the recent grand jury decisions . Video evidence has helped the broader public understand the problems African - Americans have with law enforcement , he said .