On February 24^th, President Obama took the stage in Washington D.C. to address African American youth. When I say “youth”, I am referring to a specific category of youth: minority males.  As Obama spoke about this issue, it contained many underlying messages, almost as if he were talking to his younger self. The president made a key statement that should resonate through our community. He said, “Shifting responsibility for what they have to do, we’re talking about collective responsibility to make sure that the American dream is good for all people.”

President Obama challenged these young men of color to “have no excuses,” which is common in our society today. Our community has become extremely content with being mediocre, settling for mediocrity and laziness instead of aiming high. This settling has had a trickledown effect, sinking down into today’s younger generations. President Obama is our nation’s first president with African roots; however, he shared that he could’ve settled for mediocrity himself.  He explained he was a child who had no father, got high, and also didn’t take school as seriously as he should have.

The biggest thing we must learn from President Obama’s talk with these young men is that nothing will be given to us for free. We, especially as minorities, must claw and scratch for everything we have in this nation.  During slave times, the African-American man was called “joyous,” “naïve,” “lazy,” and “ignorant.” How come those stereotypes still exist in 2014? President Obama wants all of us to be our own person and not fall into being a statistic. He wants us to take control of our lives and take down these stereotypes as well.

At that same function, businesses and foundations donated over $200 million over five years to support programs that will apparently help keep at-risk teens out of the criminal justice system. However, it is still up to us to keep ourselves out of trouble, but, it won’t be easy. ABC News reported in 2013, “The unemployment rate for African-American men over the age of 20 was 12 percent last month, compared with 5.4 percent for white men. Hispanic men over the age of 20 had an unemployment rate of 8.2 percent. The U.S. Census Bureau showed a poverty rate of 27.2 percent in black households and 25.6 percent for Hispanic households in 2012, compared with 12.7 percent in white and 11.7 percent in Asian households.”

President Obama is making an admirable effort to leave his mark as a United States President.  With no pressure for re-election, he has taken a more-focused approach on our nation’s future. As one can see, he is more focused on giving back to where he started, and actually showing at-risk kids what a true leader is. We need to follow his example and chase our dreams, putting any past choices we made behind us just as he did and strive for a better outlook on our society.