If I had brought a colored girl home for dinner I would have started a family scandal. But nothing prepared us for the racism of the Deep South. Here is an excerpt from my memoirs which I've published here before, which I believe sums it up.

It is difficult for recent arrivals to Tampa to understand how completely and pervasively Cuban culture was once established in the major cigar-factory neighborhoods of the town: Ybor City, West Tampa, and Palmetto Beach (Desoto Park to the Crackers). There was remarkably little conflict between the Cracker and Cuban communities. There was some discrimination, especially in the business world, but as a rule, people got along, played together as kids, intermarried as adults, and lived and worked side by side. In fact, if there was any racial prejudice, it was more likely to be directed at the Crackers, not the other way round. I was taught at home that although many of them were 'nice people', they did have a tendency as a race to dislike hard work, drink too much, beat their wives, abuse their kids, and not bathe very frequently. Their food was bland, their music barbaric, their religion ridiculous and they had little use for culture or education. 'Crackers', by the way, was not a pejorative term, it was the name native Floridians adopted, referring to their skill with the bullwhip driving mule trains during the pioneer days. I suppose that makes me one as well. On the other hand, we felt the way they treated their colored people was totally unforgivable. Cubans weren't free of racism, slavery was outlawed in Cuba well after the American Civil War, but they felt that they kept racism confined to social relations. Jim Crow laws and the KKK were totally incomprehensible to them, and lynching was as much a horror as the ovens at Dachau.

One of the advantages of growing up biculturally is that you soon learn that the superstitions of your tribe are not necessarily the laws of physics. With close contacts on both sides of the fence, I soon understood how similar the misconceptions of each were about the other. But I believe that rejecting unfair prejudices about others should not lead to cultural relativism. Individuals and civilizations (but not races) have their good and bad points, and some are corrupt and decadent, at least in part. Another advantage of being bicultural is that you are under no obligation to make excuses for the ugly and the bad your conscience sees in another nation; you learn to have confidence in your ability to recognize evil when you face it. You also develop a keen insight into the nature of hypocrisy. Americans did not invent racism, it is a natural phenomenon that exists in every society and even its victims embrace it. But underneath the genteel politeness of the American South it was never far below the surface, and it could erupt unexpectedly with an Oriental ferocity. I am old enough to remember institutionalized segregation, and even worse, the rationalizations and excuses for it. Although I sincerely believe that the worst is over now, the disease is still not cured, and none of us, not even its victims, is totally immune from infection. In this respect America was like a beautiful woman with rotten teeth.

Those lines were written over a decade ago, and American racism is making a comeback. Obama has exposed it, brought it back out into the open. If you don't see the opposition to Obama is not primarily racially based, you are deluding yourself. No, I'm not saying if you disagree with Obama you must be a racist. Or that if you are one of his supporters you are not a racist yourself. What I'm saying is much of the antipathy to the man is racially based, disguised as something else, or obscures racist roots. There is a subtle nuance there that perhaps only Americans with strong cross-cultural roots can see.

Yes, I believe racism is declining in this country, but it will not fade away quietly. I realize many well-meaning conservatives will bitterly disagree with these remarks, but I don't care. I've lived here all my life and I know how you guys think even better than you do, because I've always had a different culture to contrast and compare you against.

Remember Alexis De Toqueville?