That’s a fine analogy too, but what if the arm really is broken worse than the others? Then all bones matter is wrong.

Or, if you can’t accept that the arm is broken worse, then what if they’re all broken just as badly, but the others are getting treated a lot more than the arm? Then all bones matter is wrong.

But maybe you feel all bones are broken evenly and are receiving equal treatment.

Well, so much for analogy. I’ll try again.

It’s widely and deeply accepted that white lives are valuable and that police lives are valuable. More people than usual have a low opinion of police right now, but that doesn’t change that their lives are seen as valuable.

The degree to which black lives are seen as valuable varies. I think Black Lives Matter is trying to bring that variation into focus and to the degree that black people have absorbed their lives not mattering, to reaffirm that they do matter.

Not in your case, so far as I know, but usually, I hear All Lives Matter as a dismissal of Black Lives Matter, like a way to dodge discussing that police culture isn’t perfect, that tragedy happens as a result of that, not just isolated incidents in a cultural vacuum, and what to do about it.

I mean, police aren’t exactly normal, running towards danger. So they’re not going to have exactly the same culture as everyone else. So successes and failures would be isolated. They’d be tied together by shared culture. Police culture varies of course, but also has similarities in different areas of the country. Okay. Then it shouldn’t be too surprising, since police are human, that their imperfections can have dramatic and tragic results.

We’ll all be imperfect regardless, but one important subject is, what can we do to shift police culture and practices so the regular cop can be the protector they want to be and that we all need them to be? One thing is they could be less fraternity-minded, more ready to toss out bad apples without feeling like traitors to the badge.