I’m originally from Puerto Rico but have been living in the States for a good while now. I’ve heard many comments like this (I’m not all that dark, myself. Most people here are surprised to hear I’m from PR). In any case, I’ve heard many comments second-hand (like the classic, “But you’re one of the good ones,” but there was on phrase I heard first hand, directed right at me, from a well-meaning person who I cared about until… well, until she said it. I did something, I don’t remember what, and she thanked me for it by saying “That’s mighty white of you.” “White” being a stand-in for “nice” in this case. Not only the girl who said it, but others I was in school with, didn’t think there was anything racist or insulting about the phrase.
I’m not saying people in the Caribbean don’t say similar things, because they do. But I think that often people don’t even realize when it’s happening around them. Having had the…opportunity, I guess you could say, because of my Anglo appearance, to hear things that many would rarely say in front of anyone who wasn’t like themselves, proved very illuminating. It’s sad to say but there’s still a great deal of racism just beneath the surface of many, many Americans.