Racism in Latin America

The Post's Latino blog has an interesting post on racism in Latin America. New York being New York, it's mostly about the Dominican Republic and most of the responses are from Dominicans, but the things that come up show that these problems are bigger than just one country and in fact are common to Latin America. The idea that Latino is not a race, but that in fact we are split by our own internal hierarchies, is something that is not too often aired publicly in front of the Anglos, but it's important. But where does it leave us? Do national links get divided along racial lines as black Latinos squeeze into the dominant African-(North) American mold (despite cultural differences) and white Latinos make themselves into "the new white ethnic" (and take advantage of both relative privilege viz-a-viz their black countrymen and the underdog privilege of non-whites in a white world)? Does class get factored out? Complicated stuff, and difficult to make proscriptions about, but a useful discussion...