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President Obama, responding to the wave of protests and racial tensions across the country in recent weeks, appealed for patience and persistence in solving what he described as an issue that is deeply rooted in our society ... our history.

When you're dealing with something as deeply rooted as racism or bias in any society, you got to have vigilance, but you have to recognize that it's going to take some time, Obama said in an interview to be aired Monday evening on BET Networks. You just have to be steady so you don't give up when we don't get all the way there, he said in a short video clip of the interview released Sunday.

Obama has come under increasing pressure to speak out after a grand jury declined last week to indict New York police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, an unarmed black man who was being arrested on suspicion of illegally selling loose cigarettes. The Staten Island grand jurys decision came little more than a week after a St. Louis County grand jury failed to indict Ferguson, Mo., police Officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old whose death prompted unrest.

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FOR THE RECORD

5:36 p.m.: An earlier version of this post misspelled Daniel Pantaleo's name as Pantoleo.

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Responding to these cases has proved challenging for Obama. As the first African American president, he has in the past addressed America's racial tensions in a personal way, saying after the 2012 shooting death of black teenager Trayvon Martin that the victim would have looked like Obamas son, if he had one or even Obama himself 35 years ago.

Amid the protests in Ferguson, Obama has expressed empathy for those angered by what they perceive as unfair policing practices. The administration also has provided funding for police departments to equip their officers with body cameras to record their activities.

At the same time, the president has condemned looting and violence that stemmed from the protests. Obama has refrained from visiting Ferguson and has generally sought to frame the problem as part of a national debate on law enforcement and its tactics and relations with minority communities.

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Obama calls for persistence in confronting 'deeply rooted' racism