 With the election of President Donald Trump, we've seen an outburst of activism and protest across the country. Americans have gathered in major cities and in places like this, the Boston Common, to voice their concerns on a whole range of political and social issues. One of those issues is the racial justice movement, which first gained a renewed spotlight in 2013 with the foundation of the Black Lives Matter movement. Now, however, the racial justice movement is in the spotlight again after the election of President Trump, which exacerbated racial tensions and inspired Americans both black and white to take action. But what exactly is the role of white allies, which some activists are now calling themselves in the racial justice movement? Alexis Ladd is an activist who recently formed the Fostering Racial Justice Group, which is based in the mostly white town of Boxborough, Massachusetts. The group's goal is to engage the community in conversations and educational workshops about systems that enforce racism. Why do you think the Black Lives Matter movement was sort of the impetus that got that group off the ground? For me, I was doing it, doing that kind of work in my work work, but I wasn't doing it in my community. And so Black Lives Matter sort of, I felt, gave me the push or the impetus to say, OK, it's not enough to do it in your work. You need to be looking at what is your total sphere of influence. And my community was a sphere of influence that I hadn't really tapped into. So with all this work that you're doing, do you consider yourself an ally to the racial justice movement? I mean, I hope I am. How would you define an ally? I think an ally is somebody who uses their position of power wherever that is. And from my perspective, it's because of the color of my skin, using that as a voice to challenge power structures and anything that's actually marginalizing others. And so I think an ally is somebody who's willing to stand up to make change happen. You know, within this whole movement with allies sort of being activated, even with some of the best intentions, what do you think some of the pitfalls can be for allies? I think white people have a lot of work to do. I think there are some people who may not understand fully what it means to be an ally and try to take over a movement. When I say that there's a lot of work to do, white people built the structure of white supremacy, so it's up to white people to break it down. So there's a tremendous amount of work to do there. What do you think white people should do with that privilege if they want to be part of the racial justice movement? Well, you have to own it, first of all. The only way to break this system of racial oppression is to root it up everywhere it exists. And also, we're all racist, dude. Anybody who's white's racist, you're just racist. You are. You have to deal with that, right? And it's not up to black people to deal with it for you. You've got to deal with it, right? And so I'm not saying you've got to be Mother Teresa or St. Francis, it's Catholic, you know, or whatever, right? I'm just saying that people who are white who think about stuff and live where you live need to, like, take some steps. One step is to go ahead and put up, you know, a Black Lives Matter sign in a window, you know, at where you live. That's good. But then beyond that, you have to go and, you know, at your church or temple or if you're not religious, you know, like whatever you do, you know, ethical society, you know, at your workplace, you have to find ways to have these discussions. And then you have to, like, try to attend rallies and stuff or host them where you are. You know, you're your legislative, you know, you're elected officials. Do whatever you can do to improve the situation. You're describing some of the articles that you've been quoted in, and just now you've been, that racism functions as a system. How does that system work? Well, there's lots of ways to explain it. One way that I generally say it in a simplest way or a very simple way is that it's prejudice with power to enforce based upon race for the maintenance of power and privilege. What do you think that white people sometimes don't realize they're part of that system? It benefits them. They don't have to acknowledge that you're part of a system that operates to oppress other people. Means that you have a responsibility to change it. And if you don't want to carry that responsibility, it is very easy, and there's a whole system that will support that ignorance, that blindness to it. I don't see it. I don't see color, all this foolishness that people will say. Has it gotten any easier for you to navigate that system? You know, when I was younger, when I started lifting weights, I thought that the weights will get lighter. The heavier that it got, I thought it would get lighter. I literally feel like lifting something like a feather or something foolish. What I realized is that it never gets lighter. You're just able to lift it. And that's the thing. I gain more skills in being able to deal with it. And does it get any easier? Depending on how you define what easier it is. Why do you think the Black Lives Matter movement in the election of President Trump and things like that have awakened more people, more white people to the system? Awakened? I wouldn't, I don't know if I would even say that. I would say that they're uncomfortable with their reflection of the world that they live in. And they say, okay, well, let me change this. But one that stops reflecting it in such a obvious way, then they'll just go back to whatever they were doing before. Do you think some of the people you've talked to would be considered allies in this movement? There's been a lot of language around allies versus accomplices. Accomplices being people who are willing to put their lives, their bodies, their energy, their money on the line to be engaged in whatever the struggle is. Allies kind of, they can mirror the message. They can say certain things, but they don't really do nothing. They don't really move the needle. As it turns out, being a white ally is not as simple as attending a march or having difficult conversations. Activists in Boston are calling on white people to dismantle what they see as a larger system of racism. In fact, they're asking white people to look to themselves and to their own communities to find ways to bridge the racial divide.