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“Ms Dhu died too young 22 | When they carried her “like a dead kangaroo” | From her cell back to the same hospital | Who’d assumed that her pain must be invisible | But she cried three days bout aching while | Constable Bond said ‘Nah she’s faking it | Just another junkie who’s trying to escape, another | Black troublemaker, well I’m not taking it” – words from a powerful, blistering rap song just released in Melbourne to try to draw Australian and international attention to Ms Dhu’s family’s campaign for justice.

It was written and is performed by Felix Riebl, Australian-Austrian singer-songwriter, composer, multi-instrumentalist and band leader of The Cat Empire, backed by the Marliya singers from the Cairns, Queensland based Gondwana Indigenous Children’s Choir.

Aboriginal rights campaigner, Gerry Georgatos, who has written extensively on the case and West Australian racism in general, helped Riebl with the lyrics. Georgatos regularly blasts Western Australia as the most racist state in the country.

An Australian-born and bred Greek, with Jewish, Palestinian and northern African heritage, Georgatos suffered racism himself because of the colour of his skin. He writes at his independent news site how he came to be involved in the project.

“I was contacted early last year by acclaimed musician Felix Riebl of Cat Empire fame. The renowned singer/songwriter had been reading my writings on the death of Ms Dhu. Felix said to me the nation should know, everyone should know of such an abhorrently needless death but also that the right-minded people in our nation should be galvanised to demand change. Mid-last year Felix emailed me a draft of a song, in ode and memory to Ms Dhu, but also in a call to the nation’s right-minded to become a multitude of voices in the call for change. When many rise, change happens.”

Georgatos commented on the website of the indigenous television channel, NITV: “When handing out her findings into the causes of Ms Dhu's death, the West Australian coroner found Ms Dhu's death was preventable, and police were 'unprofessional and inhumane'. As the CCTV footage lays witness, Ms Dhu was dragged, carted, and hauled to the pod of a police vehicle, as her spirit left behind her mortal coil. The footage is disturbing.”

An autopsy found that Ms Dhu’s death was partly caused by complications from a previous rib fracture, which became infectious and spread to her lungs, as well as from pneumonia and septicaemia. 

Riebl says he hopes the song, 'Ms Dhu', will raise awareness about her death in custody and raise funds for her family, who have been devastated by it. All proceeds are to go to the family.

Riebl said he intended this to be a protest song to help the family’s campaign for justice, which is now focused on the dual tasks of ensuring the coroner’s recommendations are implemented and attempting to get some civil redress for Dhu’s death.  

“We must be relentless in demanding change," urges Georgatos. “The questions that we should all be asking must focus on why police and hospital personnel decided she ‘was faking it’. Because the assumption that this young Black woman was ‘faking it’ denied her a proper health assessment and life-saving critical care."

Other than being sent “stern letters” no action has been taken to punish the police involved in maltreating Ms Dhu.

She was one of about 340 indigenous people to have died in custody since a royal commission (a public inquiry) into such deaths handed down its final report on 15 April 1991. The bulk of the commission’s 339 recommendations remain unimplemented or only partially implemented, a 2015 report by law firm Clayton Utz found. In some places laws have been introduced that directly contradict the recommendation that jail be the option of last resort for indigenous people.

You can listen to the song here, here, here and here and follow the words here:

Ms Dhu died too young 22 
When they carried her “like a dead kangaroo”
From her cell back to the same hospital
Who’d assumed that her pain must be invisible

But she cried three days bout aching while
Constable Bond said ‘Nah she’s faking it
Just another junkie who’s trying to escape, another
Black troublemaker, well I’m not taking it

She’s like a two year old, give her paracetamol’
Little did they know a septicemia had taken hold 
It’s white prejudice digging black holes
Every black death in custody’s a blight on our soul

But we’re not going away, it’s our home, our home
Our heart is breaking in two, but we stand in a row
Said we’re not going away, it’s our home, our home
And we’ve been losing our youth for too long

Ms Dhu had fines yeah just a few
Three thousand six hundred and twenty two
Got her locked up in the Port Hedland zoo
Where the few rich make millions while they snooze

Still they called her a user until she died
Cold truth in her pain, in her eyes
Racism so deep it’s become institutionalized 
What they did to Dhu, is the real crime

But we’re not going away, it’s our home, our home
Our heart is breaking in two, but we stand in a row
Said we’re not going away, it’s our home, our home
And we’ve been losing our youth for too long, too long…
Too long, too long, too long, too long…

She comes from the plains where they call up the weather
Horizon so long and a Law without letters
See it come feel it fall like forever
Did it rain so long all our tears made a river? 

‘It wasn’t me, wasn’t me I’m innocent’
Say the ones who betrayed her in every sense
Now they’re white washing away evidence
Will we ever see a cop locked up for negligence?

Will we ever see the rock turned up on ignorance?
Will we ever see a government who first listens?
Will we ever see the stats fall in black prisons?
Did Dhu die for nothing, no she didn’t!

But we’re not going away, it’s our home, our home
Our heart is breaking in two, but we stand in a row
Said we’re not going away, it’s our home, our home
And we’ve been losing our youth for too long, for too long

Ms Dhu died too young 22
When they carried her ‘like a dead kangaroo’
And we wish that it wasn’t true, but it is
So the next question is what are we going to do?

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