I cannot walk in the shoes of a black man or woman and tell whomever is reading this what it is like to be of a different color in the 21st century. I cannot go back in time and experience the horrors and inhumanity of slavery. I cannot sit here as I type in this coffee shop and feel judged for the color of my skin. I am white, I am male, and I am privileged but not in every aspect.

Although things are looking up for the LGBTQIA community, it still faces hate and disapproval in the eyes of many in this country. While we move toward equality, we feel the pressure of conservative groups, pushing back on the years of progress that have been made. Marriage equality is now in 72 percent of our states, but there is still a battle to fight.

I see the same conservative push being put on the black community and other minority groups. When I turn on the news, it feels like I have taken a step back in time, a time where people were persecuted just by the color of their skin or by the ones they love. But it was also a time of action, a time where people like Rosa Parks, the Stonewall rioters and Malcolm X stood up to authority and fought for basic, human liberty.

Some say the civil rights movement of today is the push for LGBTQIA equality, some say it is still the ongoing fight for racial equality. I will admit, I was a true believer of the former, but the recent events that have unfolded in the past couple of years have shown me differently. The civil rights movement today is the fight for the equality of all human beings, regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion or gender.

“It’s almost as if the historic progression, the historic footprints, limit people’s view of what that seed that seed that got planted, what that harvest should really look like,” said Scott Finnie, Ph.D., director and professor of Africana education. “[T]he harvest should be much more broader and be much more inclusive …”

Finnie said the civil rights movement opened a door but that door is being stretched and widened to include human rights and the needs of diverse interests groups who “know oppression just because of wide variations of being left out.”

Strip us down to our basic elements and we’re all just carbon-based lifeforms, roaming the Earth without a purpose, trying to find one. Toss in the idea of a society, add in a government, laws, class structures, among other things, that make up the world we live in today, and people become stratified. We are no longer just humans without a purpose. Our purpose is defined for us by society.

Some of us in this country are instantly cast out of societal “norms” when we are born because of skin color. Others of us, such as myself, are tossed out of moral “norms” just because we don’t fit the “straight” status quo. Society in this country — though slowly changing for the better — chooses our purpose, but we’ve been fighting back.

Those of us in the fight have proven so much in the past 15 years. We’ve proven that a black man can become the president of the United States, we’ve proven that gay men can be great at football and we’ve proven a person of hispanic descent can become a Supreme Court justice. These, among others, are huge steps in a fight that has been going on for well over 60 years.

“If I was the sort of person to separate out based on issues as they mattered to me, without caring for anything else, I wouldn’t have anybody to stand with me because because I’m third gendered, I’m asexual, I’m aromantic, I’m of multi-racial descent, I consider myself largely religious,” said Fira Hedlund, a student employee for the Pride Center. “If I tried to insist that those are the only causes I’m going to stand for, I would be alone. And it’s when you’re alone that you get attacked and run the worst risk of actual harm to yourself.”

Those who believe the civil rights fight of today is an either-or fight have not been paying attention.

All who are fighting for basic human rights and equality need to come together. Each movement is only as powerful as the next. Put these movements together, one big movement for equality, and change will be made.