Passing for Moroccan

There are six Americans who work full time at the center where I teach English; the rest are Moroccans. Four of us are unmarried, young adults, three of whom are white. Daniel, who hails from Kentucky, and Chelsea, a Pennsylvanian, are both white. Ivory, who is from South Carolina, is not.

I was a bit concerned for Ivory at first because I had heard about Moroccan racism towards blacks, mainly sub-Saharan Africans. If you ask most Moroccans, they will naturally tell you that there is no racism in their country...in contrast, of course, to the United States.

Most sub-Saharan Africans who come through Morocco on their way to Europe, however, could protest that claim. Their transitory and legally dubious existence in Morocco does not endear them to the locals. What makes it even more complicated, though, is that there are a number of black Moroccans, mostly from the south, but many of whom have moved north.

Profiling is a difficult thing to do in most places, but in Morocco it is particularly so. A Moroccan can range in skin color from a white we might associate with southern Europe (one of the security guards at our center even has red hair) to a black we might associate with sub-Saharan Africa.


Yesterday, Ivory and I were standing in the doorway of our center's annex waiting for classes to start when a Moroccan woman approached. Because I was on the other side of the threshold she couldn't see me. She walked straight up to Ivory and asked her something in Arabic. Ivory, who speaks French but not Arabic, immediately turned to me with a pleading look.

Confident I could save the day with my smattering of Darija, the Moroccan dialect of Arabic, I stepped directly into the doorway where I was completely visible and asked her, "3lamin katqlb?" ("what are you looking for?").

The Moroccan woman breathed a sigh of relief. I smiled to myself, confident that my great Arabic had put her at ease, and I waited for her to respond.

"You speak English!"

Taken aback, I paused for a moment, after which I confirmed that I did in fact speak English.

In English, she asked where the main entrance to the center was, and we indicated using our universally understood index fingers, and saying in English, "over there...this way".

Ivory's American clothing did not identify her immediately because most people in the world these days wear Western, and particularly American, clothing. And because her skin color falls within the wide range of Moroccans, she passed as Moroccan.

I, on the other hand, did not, all linguistic attempts to the contrary. And not only did I not pass as Moroccan, I also tipped my hat as to my true identity without even a word in my mother tongue.