President Obama Says "Pain of Discrimination" Still Felt in America

Obama said that the state of schools is an American problem, not just an African-American problem and referenced an odd-couple team that has lobbied the president on education reform.

In themes echoing his campaign trail rhetoric, President Obama today will speak about personal responsibility at the NAACP's 100th anniversary dinner in New York City.

(AP Photo)

"And if Al Sharpton, Mike Bloomberg, and Newt Gingrich can agree that we need to solve it, then all of us can agree on that," Obama said, laughing and recalling their visit to the White House. "Those guys came into the Oval Office. I was sitting in the oval office. Kept on doing a double take. That's a sign of progress and a sign of the urgency of the education problem."

Much of the president's remarks were not only focused on the need for governmental structural reform, but also reform individually, within families, and within communities -- a tough-love emphasis that he's spoke about in the past.

"Government programs alone won't get our children to the promised land. We need a new mindset, a new set of attitudes – because one of the most durable and destructive legacies of discrimination is the way that we have internalized a sense of limitation; how so many in our community have come to expect so little of ourselves."

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Obama said that parents must say to their children, "Yes, if you're African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not. But that's not a reason to get bad grades, that's not a reason to cut class, that's not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands – and don't you forget that."

The president instructed parents to put away the Xbox, put their kids to bed at a reasonable hour, attend parent-teacher conferences and read to their children -- to push them to higher levels.

"They might think they've got a pretty good jump shot or a pretty good flow, but our kids can't all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court justice. I want them aspiring to be president of the United States."