Moderator: “On a personal front, what racial blind spots do you have?”

Bernie Sanders: “Well, let me just very briefly tell you a story. When I was in one of my first years in Congress, I went to a meeting downtown in Washington DC and I went there with another Congressman, an African American Congressman. And then we kind separated during the meeting and I saw him out later on and he was sitting there waiting, and I said, ‘Well, let’s go out and get a cab. How come you didn’t go out a get a cab?’ And he said, ‘No, I don’t get cabs in Washington DC.’ This was about 20 years ago. Because he was humiliated by the fact that cab drivers would go past him because he was black. I couldn’t believe it.[…] I’ll tell you another story. I was with some young people active in the Black Lives Matter movement. Young lady comes up to me and she says ‘You don’t understand what police do in certain black communities. You don’t understand the degree to which we are terrorized. And I’m not just talking about the terrible shootings that we’ve seen, which have got to end, and we’ve got to hold police officers accountable. I’m talking about everyday activities where police officers are bullying people.’ So, to answer your question…when you’re white, you don’t know what it’s like to be living in a ghetto. You don’t know what it’s like to be poor. You don’t know what it’s like to be hassled when you walk down the street or you get dragged out of a car. And I believe that as a nation in the year 2016, we must be firm in making it clear we will end institutional racism and reform a broken criminal justice system.”