Books Review Paper: Race, Class and Gender in the US

Ally
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An ally is a person or a group of persons who are aware of the limited opportunities emanating from limited rights or privileges, of a certain portion or the whole society. They are also aware of the fact that these limited privileges are as a result of certain forces from the members of the elite class, or failure by the state to take action to reverse or stop the situation. Examples of allies include the whites who acknowledge the existence of racism and take the respective steps to stamp it out or minimize it, the people, especially men, who vehemently preach against gender bias and sexual violence, the affluent individuals who agitate for the rights of the poor (Kozol, 2005), and the able-bodied people who fight for representation of the physically disabled. In most cases, the process of being an ally is usually very nasty. It might involve disagreements with people, and even fights.
Rothenberg (2014) simply classifies these into three main branches; race, class as well as gender. In the context of the United States, the best example of an ally emerges from a section of the whites and their struggle against racism. As recently as the Ferguson incident where a black unarmed teenager was shot dead by a white policeman, cases of racial discrimination have continued plaguing the country. The ruling by the judges, which effectively acquitted the white policeman of any wrongdoing, is a clear manifestation of open racism. Were it the other way round, then the policeman, in this case black, would have been facing numerous counts of crime.
The struggle against inequality and racism traces its history to the formative years of the nation, when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, which marked the end of sl...