Sen. Cory Booker: People are 'more outraged' over Kaepernick protests than murder of unarmed black man

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) ripped the double standard surrounding reactions to Terence Crutcher and Colin Kaepernick during an interview with Buzzfeed on Tuesday.

"Right now on the Internet you have another unarmed African American who was murdered this week — or killed this week," Booker said in reference to Crutcher's death at the hands of a Tulsa police officer. "From the video that I saw, even with the way he was being referred to, I mean there is this dehumanization going on on the audio, and people seem to be more outraged by an NFL player taking a knee than the murder or killing of an unarmed black man."

Conservatives in and out of the sports world have griped about Kaepernick's practice of kneeling as the national anthem plays before San Francisco 49ers to protest police brutality.

However, the Sporting News noted that many of his critics have not commented on the footage showing officers shooting and killing Crutcher even though he had his hands up while facing away from them.

For his part, Booker said he disagreed with Kaepernick's actions, while giving credit to Black Lives Matter activists for highlighting what he called "real issues" concerning police accountability.

"This is all stuff that's encouraging to me," he said. "Because the truth of the matter is we didn't get the civil rights movement because a bunch of senators sat around and said 'Hey, this is a swell idea.'"