Tiki Barber Fights Back Tears Defending NY Giants Owners, Says They're Not Racists

Tiki Barber is so adamant that the New York Giants org. isn't full of a bunch of racists ... he actually had to fight back tears while defending them on Wednesday.

The former G-Men star emotionally refuted Brian Flores' claims on his "Tiki & Tierney" show ... saying flat-out he knows his ex-bosses are not bigots.

"I know [Giants ownership] intimately," Barber said. "So when I say I don't believe they're racists, it's because I know they're not."

As we reported, Flores claimed in a lawsuit Tuesday that he had proof that the Giants only conducted an interview with him to satisfy a league rule that required them to look at minority candidates for their open head coaching position.

The former Miami Dolphins head coach claimed texts from Bill Belichick showed the Giants had already hired Brian Daboll, who's white, well before they even sat down with him.

Tiki, though, said he believes none of it had to do with race whatsoever.

"Yeah, maybe they don't have the right head coach -- the Black head coach," Barber said. "They don't have a Black general manager, or a Black coordinator, right? I know they're not a racist organization."

In trying to further his point, Tiki told a story about how the Maras embraced him so much ... they actually let him speak to Wellington Mara in the moments before he died in 2005.

"The Maras -- and I always say this with the Tisches as well -- like, they embraced me like I was family," an emotional Barber said. "You know what I mean?"

For their part, the Giants denied Flores' allegations in a statement following the filing of the lawsuit.