I also meant to ask, do you think there is a distinction between those two types of Muslim?
You answered that, I suppose.
Good job on handling that question so well. 
Interesting thread. Are you planning on becoming a SDMB member? If you need someone to sponsor/pay your membership, email me and I will help you out.
Is Humphrey Bogart’s Casablanca a popular film back home?
Surprisingly, Casablanca isn’t particularly popular back home. You can see posters of it in several cafes and movie theaters but it’s more of an aesthetic thing. I did watch it a few years ago and while I liked the movie, it doesn’t really have much to do with Casablanca (the city) at all.
What do you think about the racism towards black people in Morocco?
Some of the spanish who left Spain in the times of Franco and went to France or Germany to work discriminate against the Moroccan immigrants in Spain. You’d think they would know better.
Over a million people of moroccan origin live in france, Belgium, Spain, Holland, etc… A sizeable portion of them return to Morocco every summer to see their families. Many of them deal with racism in their host countries. All moroccans know about racism against moroccans abroad. Some older ones dealth with it back in the colonization days. You’d think they know better.
Unlike, say, Japan where there is a great homogeneity, moroccans come in all shades of skin, Many have clear skin. Many are different shades of brown. Some are black. You’d think that all these gradations would make them oblivious to what color someone is.
Bilal, the first Muezzin and one of the earliest follower of Muhammad was black. Islam is very clearly anti-slavery and anti-discrimination. You’d think that 99% of Moroccans being muslims would abhorr racism.
But human nature is ugly. Human stupidity is overwhelming and universal. So is racism. Quite frankly, it sickens me.
Yes, there is discrimination. On the bright side (if you can call it that), i’ve never heard of a hate crime being committed against blacks in Morocco. There are no “white power” groups and any forms of discrimination are subtle ones. Few inter-racial marriages, the majority of black people are poor, things like that. It’s not nearly as bad as it could be.
This is all regarding Native black moroccans.
There has been a very marked increase in the number of sub-saharians coming to Morocco in the past 10 years or so. Some are students and businessmen. Some are just using Morocco as a gateway to Spain and ultimately europe. I do not know how this will affect the situation over there. Hopefully, it’ll be for the best, not the worst.
PS: As the article points out, moroccans don’t really consider themselves africans. And they don’t consider themselves as arab as middle-eastern countries like Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and so on. Hassan II, the former moroccan king used to say that Morocco was a tree rooted in Africa, watered by Islam and rustled by the winds of Europe. He was pretty much right only the African roots are not very deep.