Randy Moss: I've received lots of hate mail since wearing tie with names of police victims

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Sunday night, I’m driving home, I get a direct message on my Instagram from a police officer. The police officer is telling me, ‘Hey, buddy, I disagree with the criminals that you have on your tie. They broke the law.’ He’s telling me about all these criminals and thugs on my tie. Not all of them are criminals. Not all of them are thugs. Some were just kids. But, yeah, some broke the law. And they are considered criminals or thugs or whatever the hell you consider them. But people losing their lives all the time is not supposed to happen. It’s not what they deserved. What happened, and what happens so many times, is that … it’s just wrong. These people shouldn’t have lost their lives.

People are saying that instead of putting criminals and thugs on your tie, why don’t you put some people who are really of some importance? Why don’t you put the first responders from 911 or other law enforcement on your tie? They’re calling these people on my tie thugs and criminals. So the question I have is, how many times do you have to be arrested to be considered a thug? Realistically, in the black community, it takes only one mistake. And it really doesn’t matter how old you were or what you did in the rest of your life. That’s what you are for the rest of your life. You get what I’m saying? That’s the way it is for black people. But you look at some of these [white kids] who shoot up these schools. What you hear about them is that they’re not thugs. They’re mentally disturbed. They just need a little bit of help. That’s what you always hear.

Let’s say I put 15 to 20 first responders from 911 on my tie. So then I need to find 15 to 20 people who have never had any run-ins with the law. Nothing, right? No matter what they went on to do in their life, right? The point is that we’re all people. People make mistakes. But you shouldn’t lose your life for a lot of the reasons that people have been.

The black community praised me and thanked me for shedding light on African-Americans dying. Then on the flip side, you’ve got sites where people are slamming me, saying ‘Hey, n—–, stay in your place.’ They’re saying, ‘You’re a dumb black jock. You just need to stick to playing football, n—–.’ All of this hate mail I’m getting for wearing a tie and talking about the truth. But I can handle it because I’ve been dealing with racism my whole life. I’ve deleted a lot of hate mail. Probably 150 to 200 messages the last few days. But that’s fine because I can speak out. A lot of guys don’t feel comfortable doing that.

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