And the racism they express towards American blacks is different from that they have in relation to Cuban blacks. (OUR colored folks are so much nicer than THEIRS). And of course, there are individual shades of racism across different individuals in any one population.

I'm sure black folks are racist as well, even about other black folks. But racism is sometimes conscious and deliberate, and sometimes we are completely unaware of it. Sometimes its malicious and cruel, and sometimes its just silly. And different nations are racist in different ways. Whites in the North are different kinds of racists than Southern Whites. I'm prejudiced against Mexicans because their culture is so different from my own, and I'm prejudiced against Puerto Ricans even though their culture is very similar to my own. And Puerto Ricans think Cubans are pushy and aggressive. The line between racism and just recognizing cultural differences is very vague and indistinct.

But I've known, ever since I was a kid, that the kind of racism directed against blacks by Cubans was nowhere as deep and virulent as that shown by some Southern whites. Its not as bad today as it used to be, yes, there has been progress.

Have I ever experienced racism myself? Not as a Cuban in Tampa, In my town, whites and Cubans lived and worked and went to school together, and intermarried. But when we moved into the country I experienced racism from some, but not all, the folks there. As I mentioned, I did have Cracker friends and dated Cracker girls. My parents and grandparents had definitely been discriminated against, so they were prejudiced against Crackers. The term "Cuban nigger" was very familiar to my grandparents, my parents had heard it, but I never had it used against me. And as I've mentioned before, I had my own family prejudices against Crackers. BTW, in Florida, "Cracker" is not an insulting or perjorative term. It merely means "native Floridian", so technically, I'm a Cracker as well.

The point I'm trying to make is that racism is often subtle and well hidden, and it isn't always toxic and hateful, but it is rarely totally absent. But being brought up bi-cultural makes you really sensitive to it. You learn to rely on your radar very young.