In Identity and Prejudice, Farrell Bloch presents a theoretical analysis explaining why individuals are biased against certain race and ethnic groups but in favor of others. Bloch addresses diversity, intersectionality, white privilege, political correctness, identity politics, and self-hate, and applies his theory to contemporary issues including the increased black-white intermarriage rate in the United States, European and American reaction to Muslim immigration, anti-Israel sentiment, the elections of Presidents Obama and Trump, and even the opioid crisis and American holiday observance.
Identity and Prejudice also examines ethnic identity. Bloch emphasizes a society's zeitgeist as a determinant of the intensity of identity and the direction of prejudice. He develops the concept of the Elitist Paradigm, so-called because of its promotion by the relatively well-educated group of journalists and teachers, that has downgraded respect for the West in general and the United States in particular.
Identity and Prejudice considers conditions under which prejudicial thought develops into discriminatory action. Discussions of misinterpretation of statistics, the rhetoric of prejudice, cognitive distortions, and varying propensities of groups to protest or to accept maltreatment highlight bias in the perception of both perpetrators and victims of bigotry. Bloch also focuses on individual variation within group attitudes using three examples: white racism toward African Americans, German post-war perspectives of the Holocaust, and Muslim opinions of the terrorist acts committed by their coreligionists.
Bloch reviews medieval and modern antisemitism, "the world's oldest hatred," stressing factors that can inform a general theory of prejudice and discrimination, especially their mutations over time and reactions of their victims, issues to which the Jewish experience contributes disproportionately. He covers in depth reasons why many people, Jews among them, are receptive to anti-Israel viewpoints.
Identity and Prejudice not only will prove an invaluable asset for those studying or assessing prejudice and discrimination, but also will stimulate general readers with its unusual and probing insights into past and current controversies.
