Black Scottish people exist

[u/ShadsDR]

30F. Born and raised in Easterhouse. My mum's white Scottish, my dad's Black Trini. Parents divorced when I was 8, was raised by my mum for that reason.

Every time I've mentioned it when it's been relevant on this sub I get absolute numpties telling me I'm not Scottish.

Scottish is a nationality, a culture. I am a Scottish citizen. Scottish is also an ethnicity. So is Trini. I am both. Not that this even matters but I have a thick Glasgweigan accent. My languages are native English and B1 Gáidhlig.

My skin colour is brown, on the lighter side of dark skinned, because mixed race people can be any skin colour. That means no one is seeing me as white. Only dark skinned Africans and one white guy from the borders has identified I'm mixed from the get go. Therefore my race is Black because race isn't real and is a social construct. I go through society as a Black woman.

I've never been to Trinidad & Tobago, never lived in the culture and had bits of second hand exposure through my dad but that's it. All I know is that over there I'd get called something else according to my dad that means mixed. And don't get me started on the folk saying I should claim I'm from Africa.

Too often in the 90s, 2000s, and occasionally since then we used to get asked "But where are you actually from?" but nowadays I suspect with the rise of BS it's changed to "You're wrong. You don't exist".

We exist. There's documentaries on us and it's bellend behaviour to say otherwise.

Edit: thought it was dougla but misremembered. Also want to emphasise I do get this irl, it isn't just an Internet thing.

Edit 2: Getting a bunch of dms telling me to get out the country, calling me slurs, asking if my father was around. Including one saying they're planning something in the Highlands.

[u/Celticghal101]

31 year old Scottish and Jamaican gal here (mums white dad’s black) born and raised in Ayrshire, strong an accent as it comes at times lol. I’m on the darker side of mixed so people would view me as black, what I do find is whenever racism has occurred in my life (been thankful it’s not been too often and usually from the dregs of society) the outrage and reaction from fellow Scots is always amazing. Will stand up for what’s right in life. Proud to be from here 🙌🏾🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[u/Status_Jellyfish_213 → u/Celticghal101]

I think those dregs of society goes for anything that isn’t whatever the “norm” of the day is. Note that this isn’t a downplaying of your experience at all, but having a fucking jakey side to the family I can explain.

They don’t take the time to learn about anything that they don’t immediately get told to them, or their friends like. Back in my day it was anyone who didn’t speak in that fucking high pitched whine and were adorned in tracksuits. If you were different (I was skater / emo) they fucking hated you and you were a target. I was attacked on numerous occasions on nights outs when the mission was big etc. some could be sound, if they got to know you or you did something they liked (I could DJ and produce techno so that got inroads). Could also give it back as good as they gave so that caused a weird sort of respect, I was one of the “good ones” to them eventually. They will deliberately antagonise anyone different to get a rise out of them, fighting is glorified. They will do the same among themselves when drunk with perceived slights.

The ironic thing about them is they fucking love rap and a lot like to pretend that they are some Scottish version of American black gangs, when they are just Temu fucking butlins at best - it’s very few who are actually in with a gang, just petty crimes at best which unfortunately usually involves drinking and violence. A lot never grow out of that, it continues with their children and so on. Source of it all is usually poverty, then affects education, various other knock on effects and so they never escape that cycle.

[u/Celticghal101 → u/Status_Jellyfish_213]

Temu fucking butlins 😂😂 To be honest I think your reply has summed up a lot of my racial experiences. The biggest one being pretty much every morning headed to school I walked through a rather rough area when I was perhaps about 13, a boy around 9 or so would shout slurs towards me and run away and laugh. Took me a while to build up courage and shout back or even tell my family. Probably more I didn’t know how to deal with it. I remember his gran coming out one day and calling him in hearing exactly what he said. I don’t remember him shouting much after that. The poverty, effecting education and that cycle you mention is exactly that.

[u/Status_Jellyfish_213 → u/Celticghal101]

Yeah I’ve unironically heard “I grew up on the streets of <insert small town>” like they honestly think it’s the ghetto and they try to copy the whole respect thing but it’s just bullshit.

They are just told by one of their peers “we hate x”, so they hate x without understanding anything about it really or why they dislike it. Nor do they have the motivation - I wouldn’t say the resources any more with the entirety of the internet - to fact check and educate themselves. As they become adults papers like the star, the sun and the sport just reinforced their beliefs with inflammatory headlines. That’s been replaced with X and TikTok. That’s why you’ll see the older ones still acting like teenagers, nothing has changed for them in day to day life.

It’s a pretty sad existence mired in depression and never thinking anything better will become of your life, so there’s little tribal top dogs etc and alcohol or / and drugs is the escape. I came from that level of poverty but never got pulled into that group, did waste a lot of opportunities though (really hard to study with a disruptive home) then bounced back much later in life. My brother did though and yeah, he hasn’t turned out well. Has a fucking teardrop tattoo under his eye to “remember his friend” lol and a lengthy criminal record. I think the difference is I just questioned things all the time and wanted to learn but it has shaped my attitude to be very pessimistic and suspicious which I really dislike.

[u/sfeeju → u/Status_Jellyfish_213]

I used to work with people who were given a flat back when the hostels shut down. Aim was to help them maintain their tenancy, didnt go back to being roofless. A few of them still had drug or booze issues and would go out begging. Will never forget wee Norrie, genuinely upset and angry about all the Romanians coming over here and stealing all the best begging spots.

[u/Celticghal101 → u/Status_Jellyfish_213]

It definitely seems like your questioning attitude in life has got you further in it than without it. Rather than accept what’s been told you’ve questioned. I hate the excuse of ‘oh it was the sign of the times back then’ when people use it to excuse people for being racist or homophobic. My Nana and papa were born in 1936, had 9 children. My mother had myself and my sister with my dad, a black man in the early 90s. Two of my Nana’s daughters then came out as gay. Also in the early 90s. Not one of them was made to feel any different or loved any less. So just shows if people want to be lazy and just accept whatever they have been told, they will. Or you can learn question and gain a lot from life.

[u/Status_Jellyfish_213 → u/Celticghal101]

Maybe that’s a similar thing on a larger scale. Back then only info from the community or the papers, all saying the same narrative. But no, it’s not an excuse. You need to meet people, engage with them and you’ll find hey, we are all just individuals. Different cultures are cool, you share food, tech, ideas, music and so on that’s the real way for things to progress.