I'll go first. Aside from a smile getting myself into and out of trouble, which we as women learn is power early on, I experienced what I now know to be "white privilege" socially.

I dated a mentally unstable man 10 years ago. We broke up and one year later, he was still finding ways to stalk and harass me. It finally got dangerous and I had to file an order of protection against him. I went to the building that handles those, and walked into the waiting room. There sat women bruised and in casts, some with crying children hanging off of them, and many looked like they'd been there before. I sat there with my white friend, white myself, and looked around thinking about the roomful of circumstances that all these women found ourselves there at that time.

About 15 minutes after sitting down, we were called into an office. I had a one-on-one meeting with a woman who filed the order, she gave me instructions for the future court date, and how to handle being in the same room with my stalker. We were in and out of there in under an hour, and many of the women I first saw in the waiting room were still sitting there when we left.

I felt horrible, I still do 10 years later. Why was I rushed through? Surely my situation wasn't nearly as bad as the women who had been physically abused. And what about the children, what kind of lives are they having now? I carry it with me, and I like to think it helped inform my behavior in society, and never take anything for granted.