Warning: This article contains the names of Indigenous people who have died.
Actor, writer and Gamillaroi and Torres Strait Islander woman Nakkiah Lui has urged non-Indigenous Australians to feel outrage about the police brutality in this country towards Indigenous people.
Lui was a panellist on Tuesday night’s episode of The Project, dedicated mainly to the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States and Australia’s own historical, systematic abuse of First Nation people.
Nakkiah Lui’s impassioned plea on The Project is a must-watch. Post continues below video.
Thousands of protesters marched in Sydney’s CBD on Tuesday evening, demanding an end to mistreatment of Indigenous Australians. As reported by The Guardian, at least 432 Indigenous people have died in police custody since Australia’s Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991.
Joining panellists Carrie Bickmore, Waleed Aly, and Peter Helliar, Lui expanded on a tweet she made earlier in the day bringing attention to these deaths.
“These people aren’t just numbers,” Lui said later in the segment. “They have names. David Dungay, Tanya Day. And they are loved – they are still loved.
“So what I want to say is just, the people who are watching, think about your loved ones. What would you do if they died begging for help? What would you do if they died with a knee on their neck?” she said, referencing the death of unarmed black man George Floyd in Minneapolis, who died after a white police officer held his knee to his neck for more than eight minutes, while Floyd begged for help.
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