questioning each other's sanity

My buddy Steve doCarmo writes on his blog, regarding the slogan "Black Lives Matter":

The Black Lives Matter movement has given us all an excellent litmus test—in the form of its very name.

Some people hear that name, that phrase, “black lives matter,” and they’re sure they hear a particular word right after it:

More.

These people say, “Black lives matter more?” And they get angry. And they put signs on their lawns—and bumper stickers on their cars—making a retort: “All lives matter.”

Others of us hear that name, that phrase, “black lives matter,” and we’re sure we hear a different particular word right after it:

Too.

And we say, “Has it really come to this? So many years after Brown vs. Board and Dr. King and Malcolm X and the Freedom Riders, black Americans are actually having to remind us, in the wake of so many ugly recent incidents, that their lives matter too?”

And we say, It’s clearly time to get back to work.

And we say, Police, schools, and tax codes gotta change.

And we say, How on earth does any sensible American hear that name, that phrase, and imagine there's a more after it?

Meanwhile, at the Observer, Austin Bay writes:

No sane person ever said black lives didn’t matter or that racial prejudice doesn’t exist in America—quite the opposite. But two or three short weeks ago try and whisper “all lives matter” much less “blue lives matter” (ie, the lives of law enforcement officers) and Black Lives Matter activists, their political allies and their friendly media pals would have scorned your words as gutter racism.

Black Lives Matter activists and their propagandists have waged a very effective War On Honesty. Black Lives Matter leaders employ vicious charges of racism to silence political opponents, or, failing that, deter media criticism of their radical tactics, which include violent language and occasional violent incidents. The goal is political provocation and divisiveness. Yes, Black Lives Matter benefits as an organization from divisiveness. It serves their political goals.

So who's saner? Could it be we're all just talking past each other?

Statistics seem to indicate that it's not blacks who are killed at the highest rate by police.

But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.

“It is the most surprising result of my career,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr., the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard. The study examined more than 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments, in Texas, Florida and California.

The result contradicts the image of police shootings that many Americans hold after the killings (some captured on video) of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; Tamir Rice in Cleveland; Walter Scott in South Carolina; Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La.; and Philando Castile in Minnesota.
[Fuller disclosure of context: the article still concludes there is police bias against blacks in terms of the use of less-than-deadly force.]

And from Heather Mac Donald [sic—she really does write "Mac Donald" as two separate words, not as "MacDonald"]:

For starters, fatal police shootings make up a much larger proportion of white and Hispanic homicide deaths than black homicide deaths. According to the Post database, in 2015 officers killed 662 whites and Hispanics, and 258 blacks. (The overwhelming majority of all those police-shooting victims were attacking the officer, often with a gun.) Using the 2014 homicide numbers as an approximation of 2015’s, those 662 white and Hispanic victims of police shootings would make up 12% of all white and Hispanic homicide deaths. That is three times the proportion of black deaths that result from police shootings.

The lower proportion of black deaths due to police shootings can be attributed to the lamentable black-on-black homicide rate. There were 6,095 black homicide deaths in 2014—the most recent year for which such data are available—compared with 5,397 homicide deaths for whites and Hispanics combined. Almost all of those black homicide victims had black killers.

Police officers—of all races—are also disproportionately endangered by black assailants. Over the past decade, according to FBI data, 40% of cop killers have been black. Officers are killed by blacks at a rate 2.5 times higher than the rate at which blacks are killed by police.

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, himself black (which matters not at all to me, but which matters to the identity-politics crowd), has this to say about the BLM movement:

The bloodbath continues for the American law enforcement officers in the name of "Black Lives Matter."

I listened to the president this afternoon...

Here's the thing [President Obama] will not do. And this will go a long way...

He will not condemn anti-police sentiment. He condemned the violence, he has to condemn the violence, but he will not condemn the anti-police sentiment.

When a terror attack happens, he goes out there and warns and condemns against Muslim-backlash. He will not do that for American police officers...

Black Lives Matter are purveyors of hate. It is a hateful violent ideology... That I said has to be wiped off the face of the earth. I said that a year ago and the liberal mainstream media went haywire. They bear some responsibility too.

So I would tentatively conclude that the BLM movement, by focusing on blacks, is itself adding an implicit more to the dialogue, and that this is what "All Lives Matter" is pushing against. Don't be so quick to cry "racism." All lives do matter... don't they?