Four panelists discussed oppression and discrimination within the black, immigrant and LGBT communities during an open discussion about social justice on Friday in the Witherspoon Student Center.

Panelists included Mandy Carter, co-founder of the National Black Justice Coalition; Beth Dehghan, founder and president of Women NC; Ngoc Loan Tran, communications director for the Youth Organizing Institute; and Jorge Ramos, a youth council member at El Pueblo Inc.

The panel included women, people of color, youth and people who identify as gay.

“When we think about liberation, we have to think about collective liberation,” Tran said. 

It is impossible to compartmentalize identities and communities because, when fighting for women’s liberation, activists are also fighting for the liberation of people in the LGBT community as well as for people of color, Tran said.

Renee Wells, the director of the NC State GLBT Center and one of the event’s organizers, said this was the first time the Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity has put on this type of collaborative social justice event. 

Wells said the event attempted to bring different communities together to have a conversation about social justice and to think of new ways to work together, as the groups are often impacted by similar issues.

“When I walk into a room, I’m not sure if someone is going to be anti-me because I’m a woman or I’m black,” Carter said. “And if I tell people I’m lesbian that might be added to the list.” 

Carter said in order for all marginalized communities to participate in a unified movement, they must recognize that the efforts of each community impact other people. 

“Are we about justice, or are we about just us?” Carter said. 

The panel discussed how the system that currently stops gay couples from getting married is the same system that makes it difficult for oppressed people to find employment and housing while also putting minorities in prisons and detention centers.

“There are just so many different things and everything is connected,” Ramos said.

Dehghan tied this concept into women’s rights, stating how liberating women can help the entire community. 

Twenty-five percent of women in North Carolina experience domestic violence, and North Carolina is on the FBI’s watch list as one of the top eight states for human and sex trafficking, according to Dehghan.

“There is not competition between men and women,” Dehghan said. “Both of us are two beings of humankind. If we fly in harmony and in equality then this bird can fly faster and better.”

The panel visited the topic of the school-to-prison pipeline several times during the discussion. The school-to-prison pipeline is an institutional system in the United States that sends marginalized young people from their classrooms into detention centers and jails due to punitive disciplinary measures, Tran said. 

“Systems right now are making money and are profiting off of youth of color and poor youth,” Tran said.

Chelsey Gardner, a senior studying communication, said she thought the panel was diverse and informative.

“The way that the panel conceptualized all these topics that made it real for not only NC State, but also for neighboring community members was just unparalleled,” Gardner said.

Carter said it is important to have these conversations in the South. As an openly lesbian female African-American living in the South, she said it makes a difference that people can see and hear her in panels such as these. 

“I become the face for those who can’t be seen,” Carter said. “I become the voice for those who can’t be heard.”