On Thursday, President Obama addressed the officer-involved shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota, blaming them on "racial disparities" that still exist within the criminal justice system.

He said "these are not isolated incidents" and went on to cite "not just one, but a wide range of studies" that show blacks and Hispanics are targeted more so than whites by police when it comes to traffic stops, arrests, charges, sentencing, and being shot.

"Now, these are facts," said Obama. "And when incidents like this occur, there’s a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same. And that hurts. And that should trouble all of us."

"This is not just a black issue," he added. "It's not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we should all care about. All fair-minded people should be concerned."

Obama obliged the "vast majority" of officers by not calling them racists but didn't hesitate to say that America's long history of systematic racism isn't going away anytime soon:

"To be concerned about these issues is not political correctness. It’s just being an American, and wanting to live up to our best and highest ideals. And it’s to recognize the reality that we’ve got some tough history and we haven’t gotten through all of that history yet. And we don’t expect that in my lifetime, maybe not in my children’s lifetime, that all the vestiges of that past will have been cured, will have been solved, but we can do better. People of goodwill can do better."

To do better, Obama suggested "addressing potential bias in the criminal justice system."

The president made one final plea:

"And I would just ask those who question the sincerity or the legitimacy of protests and vigils and expressions of outrage, who somehow label those expressions of outrage as 'political correctness,' I’d just ask folks to step back and think, what if this happened to somebody in your family? How would you feel?"