There have been far too many of these cases to keep talking about Michael Brown. In the ones where the cops were clearly in the wrong, or even crossed the line to downright murder, they do face justice - but that's not going to bring the victims back to life.

What is 'the black community', exactly? Do they have membership cards? Did they sign up to be held accountable for the actions of black criminals? Yes, it's true that black Americans are statistically more likely to be violent criminals, so their extreme overrepresentation in prisons and on death row is justified in part. It's also true that they are statistically punished heavier for the same crimes than white Americans, whether it's drug offences or death row cases.

'All lives matter' is a fair enough reply to 'black lives matter', but only if it's an expression of a real and serious commitment to tackling police excesses and miscarriages of justice for all Americans, including but not limited to the black ones. Not if it just means "there is no problem here, move along, nothing to see".