But nobody said those other lives don’t matter; no one even said that black lives matter a tiny bit more. Pretending that the choice is binary—and then acting as if it’s the other side that framed it that way—is a handy dodge but a dishonest one. If I say “Save the whales,” it does not mean, “Screw the eagles.”

Then there’s the nifty but nasty moral jujitsu of calling Black Lives Matter racist—or, in Giuliani’s phrasing, “inherently racist” and “anti-American.” This is a close cousin of the equally cynical “no special protections” argument that is raised most commonly by people objecting to legislation that would prevent discrimination against gays, lesbians and the transgender people.

In both cases, the idea is that laws should not be written that take particular care to look after one group but not others—a perfectly fine argument, unless the one group you’re talking about is subject to particular perils. It’s not heterosexuals who face dismissal or bullying or even the risk of being killed over their sexual orientation. Similarly, it’s not white Americans who keep turning up dead in cell phone videos after what should have been a routine encounter with a police officer. Them what faces the danger gets the special protection; them what doesn’t—one would hope—would be happy to help.