Obama: Democracy Demands Getting Inside ‘the Reality of People Who Are Different Than Us’

EXCERPT:

OBAMA: "But Democracy demands that we’re able also to get inside the reality of people who are different than us, so we can understand their point of view; maybe we can change their minds but maybe they’ll change ours. And you can’t do this if you just out-of-hand disregard what your opponents have to say from the start. And you can’t do it if you insist that those who aren’t like you because they’re white, or because they’re male, that somehow there’s no way they can understand what I’m feeling, that somehow they lack standing to speak on certain matters."