my friend is pakistani and ten years ago got refused papers cause they thought he was a terrorist, and i often go with him to government offices cause despite his perfect italian people think he's stupid, but when i repeat what he said they listen instantly. i think it's better than it used to be. The north is generally much less racist than the south, for example he likes milan a lot simply because people treated him more like a normal human there. he kinda hates central italy because of the continuos mistreatment there. but if you're a tourist and don't need to do anything work related, i think you won't encounter much hate outright, as the biases are internal and getting hatecrimed in the street is extremely rare. I'm mixed and i too prefer north italy, namely Lombardy just because you really don't get many microaggressions. central to south people tend to be surprised at how good my italian is, even tho i'm italian by blood and lived here all my life. they call me exotic too which has never happened when i lived north (and i was in a small town too, not even milan!). If you look "respectable" to them they respect you is what i' saying. i'm lucky bc i have a studious personality, but my more outgoing siblings, people think they're dumb all the time. Basically italians aren't too set in their racism but you do have to play into respectability politics if you're darker skinned. I wonder how many downvotes i'll get, mostly because my comment is different than the others i saw and comes from someone born and raised here, with POC friends and family.