Not only the brave heart: Black Scots become tiktok among African Americans | Scotland

It began with a good roar about Scotland’s summer weather and has developed into a global dialogue on cross-Strait history, diaspora and diversity.

Last week, Torgi Squire uploaded Tiktok Posts He asked, any Scottish parent could have a week with: Why does summer weather always improve children’s return to school?

The 43-year-old high school teacher from Glasgow ended with his usual signing, wishing everyone “a day’s bet”, without expecting it. There are other ideas on the Internet.

The post was picked up by American Weather reporters, and Squire’s comments suddenly filled with African Americans, expressing their surprise and delight in discovering a Scottish-emphasized black man. But that doesn’t stop there: The Black Scots Tiktok Finding myself full of American cousins’ questions and catching the opportunity to respond with a high-quality drama ban as #BlackScottishTiktok has made thousands of posts.

“It’s a whirlwind,” said Squire, who teaches design and technology. His original post has received nearly 4 million views, and he has since welcomed more than 200,000 new followers.

“Americans are kept in an echo chamber by the media, their only point of reference Scotland It is a brave heart, brave or shrek. They don’t seem to be too conscious of the diaspora, especially in the UK, which is perhaps why they react to being so curious.

“But it’s not just Americans. I have comments from English, too, so it’s still surprising that blacks with Scottish accents on both sides of the Atlantic.”

Scotland is certainly more diverse than when I was growing up in the 1980s – “Of course four of my 1,400 kids were black, and three of them were related to me”.

“In my experience, Scotland is a passionate place, and despite the still racism, it is isolated and the people of Scotland are very good at bringing it up. Perhaps it’s because there are much fewer black people than in the United States and we tend to treat each other like a community.”

When Ellie Koepplinger, who posted about race and politics on Tiktok, saw the initial interest in Squire content, she thought: “It would be huge.”

“Then, the other black Scots started to speak out, which was really exciting.”

Koepplinger, who grew up in Glasgow and lived in the United States for nine years, added Her own post About Mixed Heritage in Scotland: “It feels like people know that we have our own racial politics.”

But interest from all over the Atlantic has a more practical advantage, she suggested: “Trump makes America so hostile to blacks that people who have so many people talking about their positive experiences in Scotland have attracted great interest for those who are really keen to leave America.”

She added that the amount of content also caused some fruitful conversations between the Black Scots themselves. “It’s so fun to hear other Scots talk about racism and the challenges they’ve been through in Scotland. The Black community in Scotland is quite dispersed because it’s small, but it’s happy to grow.”

Manny Daphey, a 20-year-old student, soon found his content being driven by the Tiktok algorithm, doubled his content as Americans flocked to him. “I was so surprised that suddenly everyone was interacting and it felt like talking to my long-lost cousin.”

“Many Americans are very interested in living in Scotland and say they want to visit,” he said. Perhaps inevitably, there are also women who appreciate handsome faces in Scottish accents. He said American women can be “very direct”.

A few days ago, when I brought you news comedian and CNN host Roy Wood Jr, who had arrived in Edinburgh, was ready to attend some of the shows at the festival. Instead, he was transferred To Tiktok OdysseyCross the Central Belt interviews the Black Scots and prove to his fellow countrymen that they do exist.

In one of his posts, wood means that black Americans don’t understand black Scots in part because their schools “gunately teach them about black Americans.”

“People can laugh at stupid Americans, not knowing there are black people in Scotland, but that tells us a lot about the differences in the education system and government defines as history.”

Wood said in an interview with Scottish creators that a common topic is that black Scots are suddenly able to connect online in a way that is not very familiar in the real world. “From the United States, I found there was no black community, no exclusive cultural enclave for black people in Scotland, so there was a general feeling that ‘now we’ve found each other’.”

Wood followed the squire in Glasgow and the two made a post together. “This is an opportunity for blacks throughout the diaspora to talk to each other.”

“The conversations over the past week have really fulfilled my life,” Squire added. “It makes me happy that people are getting together.”