Obama talked about the fact that some people in jail need to be there, at least for some period of time. And he didn’t lambast law enforcement.

Still, this Obama didn’t do what he has so many times before. He didn’t lecture black America about its behavior while making only passing mention of some of the social and economic conditions that solid research — not just political ideology — tells us has at least helped to foster inequality. He gave a full airing to his sense that there is a need for wholesale policy reforms. And he stayed completely clear of the politically expedient and at-times-outright-popular act of saying that young black men should do something about the way some wear their pants or how they speak.

This Obama did not demur from the fact that mass incarceration and sexual violation in prison that have become such accepted feature of life for some segments of America that they are now part of the American joke-making firmament. He mentioned both. And Obama put the price tag of mass incarceration, American-style, at more than $80 billion a year.