Shemar Moore recently talked about the uprisings surrounding the death of George Floyd, and countless other Black people by the hands of police. The Criminal Minds actor connected this moment to his own racial identity. 

While talking to Love & Hip Hop Hollywood‘s Moneice Slaughter, the 50-year-old said, “I am half Black and I am half white. But I am proud to be Black, but I am also proud to be white.”

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He continued, “I understand what it is to be treated like a n*gga when I don’t have my fame and when I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time, and nobody knows who I am. Then I’m just a n*gga in the street. I’ve been thrown down on the sidewalk in my lifetime. I understand what it is. I haven’t gone through the George Floyd situation. I have not gone through that, but I know what it is. But I’m not gonna denounce the other side of me, because I’m looking at humanity.”
He also added, “My mother, who’s white, who just passed – I lost my best friend. But my momma? If she didn’t look outside the box, I wouldn’t have life. Ok? This is a white woman from Boston in the ’60s. That was a very racist, racially-divided time. She thought outside of the box and she met my daddy, and she made me.”

Moore’s mother Marylin Joan Wilson-Moore passed away on February 8, 2020.
“Now that I have this life, I can’t denounce [it] because there is good and bad on all sides. Black, white, green, or yellow. I understand that I am brown. I understand that I am Black. I understand that I am a n*gga, ok?” he continued. 

“But I am not gonna denounce my momma. And if my momma was still alive, she’d say, ‘Baby, go out there and make a change. Go out there and spread positivity. Go out there and tell the truth.’”
Watch the clip below: