Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) Former Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday he understands why the word "boy" is offensive, but insisted his use of it at a recent fundraiser was not derogatory in nature.

"I do understand the consequence of the word 'boy,'" Biden told MSNBC's Al Sharpton after speaking at the South Carolina Democratic Party's convention. "But it wasn't said in any of that context at all."

Biden is attempting to move past the controversy that erupted Tuesday night when, at a fundraiser in New York City, he described working with segregationists in the Senate in the 1970s and 1980s and said that during that era, "at least there was some civility."

"I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland," Biden said then, referring to the notoriously racist Mississippi Democrat. "He never called me 'boy,' he always called me 'son.'"

In the interview with Sharpton, Biden sought to explain that Eastland and other senior senators dismissed younger members of the chamber, including former Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, who Biden said Eastland had called "boy."

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