And although blacks with anti-immigrant sentiment are among the minority, these tensions belie significant fear of real or perceived scarcity, job displacement, loss of political power and plain old bigotry. This animosity is exacerbated when groups that avoid working with blacks leverage the language, imagery and tactics of the black civil rights movement to advance their struggles. Scholars like UC Berkeley's Ian Haney-Lopez assert that one barrier to coalition building is that we black folk focus too much on race. If African Americans insist on building coalitions based on racial solidarity, says Haney-Lopez, they will miss out. In this analysis, racism only occurs between blacks and whites.
Xenophobia literally means fear of dark or darker people.
There are obvious problems with attempting to distinguish xenophobia from racism. The point is that the distinction connotes separation from the meaning and people associated with racism in order to cling to a slim thread of privilege. To paraphrase philosopher Iris Young, it is the battle over who will be exploited and who will be marginalized. The confluence of these forces and the largely white-controlled, dehumanizing public context makes coalition building a challenge. Yet, there's hope.