NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama says a sense of powerlessness and unfairness among young minorities has helped fuel the protests the nation has seen in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

He says the catalyst of those protests were the deaths of young black men and "a feeling that law is not always applied evenly in this country."

But he says the need for greater opportunity for young people goes beyond policing. He says society bears responsibility because there "are consequences to indifference."

Obama spoke as he announced the launch of a nonprofit foundation to carry out the work of his My Brother's Keeper initiative.