Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told former Vice President Joe Biden during a recent phone call that he should apologize for using the word "boy" in regards to African-Americans.
Booker said the two Democratic presidential candidates had a conversation that lasted 15 or 20 minutes.
"I had an opportunity to explain to him further how and why African-Americans, men who have been called 'boy' before. Why racist senators like those would look at him and call him 'son' as seeing themselves in him," Booker said on Thursday's "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell."
"See in a black man and call them 'boy' because they don't see themselves, but they see someone they are dehumanizing or degrading. And so having conversations like that is the dialogue that is a constructive thing. I appreciate that."
The Washington Examiner reported on Booker's remarks.
It was reported this week that Biden was aligned with two segregationists in the Senate during the 1970s, and that one of them would refer to him as "son" and "boy."
Biden is the leading Democratic presidential candidate for the 2020 election.