BY PAUL BRINKLEY-ROGERS

 The Elian affair sharply divided Cubans and non-Cubans who call Miami home, but the ax that felled the tree of community was wielded by Miami Mayor Joe Carollo when he fired the city manager, irate citizens said on Saturday.

 ''Fidel Castro, Joe Carollo -- same thing,'' said Brewster Cunningham, 34, one of a scattering of African Americans who joined more than 2,000 white non-Hispanics in waving the Stars and Stripes along U.S. 1 in Cutler Ridge.

 ''They're dictators. They only represent Cubans, not me,'' said the maintenance supervisor. ''When Carollo fired [Donald] Warshaw and then the police chief [William O'Brian] resigned, that was it. I went home and told my wife we've got to get out of this place because those Cubans are totally out of control.''

 For Cuban Americans, however, the ''Elian-Carollo double whammy'' as Esteban Martinez put it, ''really alienated us from everyone.''

 ''My white friends won't talk to me,'' Martinez, 23, said. ''Blacks won't give me the time of day. It's because I'm Cuban. They think I'm loco [crazy].''

 Martinez said he fiercely resents the way his friends ''have turned'' on him. ''It's going to take me a long time to get over this,'' the fine arts student said. ''I don't trust anyone -- only my own people.''

 Brenda Sapperstein of Miami Beach, shopping at a record store in Kendall, said one of the ironies of the month's events is that although there has been a falling out between many Cuban Americans and non-Cuban Americans, ''all kinds of Americans -- all colors, shapes and sizes -- have come together on this one.''

 ''I've even heard Republicans say Clinton and Reno did the right thing,'' she said referring to the extraction of Elian from the home of his Little Havana relatives.

 In the Starbucks store in Coral Gables, Wendy Miller, 18, drank a latte with some friends. ''I've never really been upset about anything,'' she said. ''But I watched Joe Carollo and his friends [on TV] fire Mr. Warshaw, and that was way not cool.

 ''That's not the way we do things in America. He [Carollo] does not understand he's everyone's mayor.''

 While thousands of people gathered en masse to either protest the taking of Elian or to back U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno for sending in federal officers, there were also some tiny demonstrations.

 One of the smallest, but clearly heartfelt, was the 16-member Wilcox family effort on U.S. 1 at 39th Street in Miami. Inviting motorists to honk if they disapproved of Carollo, they waved a large U.S. flag.

 Miami-born Inez Wilcox, 72, the senior member of the African-American family present, said she attended the Miami City Commission meeting where Carollo fired Warshaw. She said she and her friends were told by some of the mayor's Cuban-American supporters to ''shut up.''

 ''Miami is unfortunately a very divided community right now,'' said the retired middle school teacher. ''The mayor has not helped the situation.''

 Wilcox said she came home from the commission and held a family meeting until 1 a.m.

 The entire family, she said, decided to stage their own protest ''because people like us have been silent too long.''

 Her daughter, Miriam Holston, 40, a substitute teacher, said, ''I have a message for Joe Carollo. Let him rent the Orange Bowl and have a community meeting for all the people.

 ''His sins have caused a lot of anger and bitterness,'' Holston said. ''But before there is healing, repentance must happen. That repentance has to start with Joe Carollo.''

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald