On Saturday, I attended the 29th Annual Empowering Women of Color Conference (EWOCC). EWOCC is the ” longest running women of color conference in the country… presenting women of color with an opportunity to address the racial, class, and gender issues facing American Indian, African American, Asian American, and Chicana/Latina women.” I had heard about it from my friend Mele a few weeks ago and was immediately interested because I am woman of color. Recently, I’ve been keener to issues of race and diversity. Working on staff at the Multicultural Center of my school can do that to you, I guess. Anyway, the conference piqued my interest; I shared it with the rest of the staff and two other women decided to join me, Janice and Shaanika.

To be completely honest, none of us knew what to expect. I had never been to a conference of this nature before (I’ve only been to WonderCon and ComicCon—both totally different atmospheres). We arrived at the hall a little winded (the UC Berkeley hills a very different trek than our usual flat ground at SCU) and the keynote speaker was just beginning her speech.

Loretta Ross, the keynote speaker, shared some great words, a lifetime of wisdom really, but the main thing I took away from her talk was this: in our society, “we all have equal access to be miserable.” We all live in America where all the same laws apply to everyone (or, rather, where are the laws should apply to everyone), but what sets individuals apart is our privilege.

Ross redefined privilege. Privilege is not wealth or status. It isn’t the fact that some parents enroll their children into private schools while others can’t afford to send their children to school at all. It isn’t the fact that some employees are more likely to get a promotion while others remain in the same position for years despite their proficiency because of their gender. It isn’t the fact that some couples are allowed to get married in certain states while others’ love is “illegal.”

Privilege is being aware of these facts. Privilege is knowing that there is something wrong.

The next step is acting upon that privilege. It’s doing something about the misery. It’s finding a way to educate children whose households can’t afford to send them to school, to promote the employees who truly deserve it, to support love of all kinds. It’s making the conscious decision to change.

Not only did this speech and this conference present to me an opportunity to think about my privilege, but it also inspired me to look around. Let me explain: I go to Santa Clara University, a predominantly Caucasian university. When I walk into a classroom, I am one of maybe five other students of color in a class of 25. It’s startling to realize this fact in the middle of every single quarter.

What’s even more startling, perhaps, is how startled I was to see an auditorium filled with women of color on Saturday. I don’t think I had been surrounded by so many diverse people in my entire life. I could be over-exaggerating, but that’s certainly how it felt.  Looking around the room and seeing broken pasts and hopeful futures in the faces of these women empowered me. Hearing them speak about their privilege, their stories, their dreams is empowerment. I realized that struggle is constant in their lives, the kind of struggle that keeps mothers awake at night wondering how they will feed their children the next day. The kind of struggle that strains relationships between daughters and fathers and mothers. The kind of struggle that pushes people to violent aggression.  I don’t know this kind of struggle. And that’s what startling.

I want to use my privilege to learn about the struggle and the misery of others and share it with the world. Because we all live in this miserable society and some of us contribute to the misery, but some of us try to find a way out of it.