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by mkr-hn 1569 days ago
The US has a complicated relationship between colloquial and academic definitions. Academic is useful for understanding and discussing the history of systemic issues, but sometimes people try to over-fit them to avoid recognizing someone's suffering as legitimate or serious enough to warrant advocacy.

Most people here will apply the colloquial definition which is more or less another word for xenophobia. An academic racial analysis could help understand why someone who's seen as white and foreign is often treated better than someone born here, but someone trying to do that as an explanation for why you shouldn't care about a Russian immigrant's feelings would be rightly seen as a jerk.

There might still be some prejudice, as analyzed in this classic stand-up bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OB72GZOS4c