Obama says there is still much to be done against racism

                      


Washington - US President Barack Obama said in a commencement address Saturday that race relations in the United States have improved over the past three decades, but added that significant progress is still needed. "I tell you this not to take them to complacency, but to encourage them to act, because there is still much work to be done," Obama told about 2,300 students from Howard University in Washington, recognizing that racism and inequality still persist. "We can not be sleepwalkers in life."

The United States has faced a series of racial controversies in recent years, including the death in 2014 of a young black disarmed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, in an episode that came to trigger protests sometimes violent. The United States has a racial inequality in economic opportunities, said Obama, noting that the overall unemployment rate in the US is about 5 percent, but is close to 9 percent for blacks.

Obama, white mother and African father son, told the graduates to be proud of their racial identity. "Be confident in their color," Obama said, adding that "there is a way to be black ... there are no limits or tests for authenticity."