Why do some respond “All lives matter” when others declare that “Black lives matter”? Is it because “Black lives matter” is taken to imply “Non-black lives do not matter”?

But that would be like concluding “All cats have fur” implies that “All dogs do not have fur.” Absurd.

The correct inference would be “If your life does not matter, you are not black.” But let’s not too hastily dismiss “All lives matter” given that so many people are ready to respond with it.

Is there a reasonable understanding of this strangeness?

Perhaps the intent is based on objection to perceived reverse racism. Might they believe that advancing the cause of black lives has gone too far and that as a result the lives of people in their own group are now being disadvantaged? “Black lives matter,” then, for them, would be another instance of this reverse racism of which they have had enough. On this interpretation, “All lives matter” is just “What about us!”

So what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong is that it misses the point and suppresses the important by replacing it with the trivially but misleading obvious.

As Kevin Roose, nicely indicates, in “Black lives matter” there is an implicit “too.” It declares that “Black lives matter too.” Instead, it is read as if there is an implicit “only.” As in, “Only black lives matter.”

The latter cannot be the intention because it would be a losing argument that could carry no weight and therefore be self-defeating from the get-go. No, “Black lives matter too” is the correct reading and it is motivated by the facts, which those who live black lives know far better than I.

We need to be told that black lives matter because the cultural messages deny it.

“All lives matter” will suffice when all lives are included in the “All.”

We aren’t there yet. There is research to help those of us who lack first hand experience.

Consider a 2014 report. Black children make up 18 percent of preschoolers, mostly 4-year-olds, but make up nearly half of all out-of-school suspensions. Across age groups, black students are three times more likely than white students to be suspended.

Black students comprise about 16 percent of enrolled students, but more than a quarter of all students referred to the police.

“Harvard researchers found that black boys faced harsher punishment because they’re often perceived as older than they actually are.” (tinyurl.com/qcjjkmr)

“The study also involved 264 mostly white, female undergraduate students from large public U.S. universities. In one experiment, students rated the innocence of people ranging from infants to 25-year-olds who were black, white or an unidentified race. The students judged children up to 9 years old as equally innocent regardless of race, but considered black children significantly less innocent than other children in every age group beginning at age 10, the researchers found.

“The students were also shown photographs alongside descriptions of various crimes and asked to assess the age and innocence of white, black or Latino boys ages 10 to 17. The students overestimated the age of blacks by an average of 4.5 years and found them more culpable than whites or Latinos, particularly when the boys were matched with serious crimes …. Researchers used questionnaires to assess the participants’ prejudice and dehumanization of blacks. … participants who implicitly associated blacks with apes thought the black children were older and less innocent.”

A UC Berkeley philosophy professor, Judith Butler, provides a profound discussion of black lives not being included in all lives as things now stand, and the implications for slogans and action. (tinyurl.com/lsmw8sr)

She illuminates police perception and behavior, the justifying of lethal violence in the name of self-defense occurring in the absence of real threat, the normalizing of stand-your-ground and racist killings, and why we are not ready for “All lives matter.”

Do read it.

Richard S. Bogartz is a professor psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.