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A Black Londoner, Plopped Down in Whitest Scotland
For the first time in my life, people stared at me like I was an attraction at a museum — or even the zoo
Moving to Scotland for university was a huge culture shock to me. I grew up in South London in a town called Croydon, which is known for many things (most of them being crime-related and not at all pleasant), but the thing it is probably most recognised for is its racial diversity. Growing up, I was never a racial minority. The majority of my high school classmates were Black and Asian; my ethnic background was considered ‘normal’; I could go days without seeing a white person my age; and I could easily find people who not only looked like me but ate the same food I ate at home and spoke the way I do. I love South London so much and had no idea that my upbringing wasn’t the norm for every Black person in the UK. Until I got to university.
There’s this idea that Londoners are so obsessed with London and our own little bubble that our geography of the UK is terrible. And to be honest, the idea isn’t entirely wrong. London was all I knew; I couldn’t fathom a place outside of the town I had grown up in, which is why I wanted a drastic change. In my final year of school, I decided that I wanted to get as far away as I possibly could from London but still be situated within the UK. That faraway place happened to be a quaint micro-city in Scotland called Aberdeen.
A 10-hour train ride from London, Aberdeen is a place at the edge of the UK where all the buildings are made of grey stone (seriously, look it up) and people consume drinks like irn bru and desserts like a deep fried Mars bar. It is also a place where public transport runs on vibes and luck — unlike the super-fast and mostly reliable London transport; where people say, “Fit like?” instead of “Hello;” and where I could go days without seeing another person of colour.
When I arrived, I felt as though I had stepped through a door to a mystical land where things were the complete opposite to what I was used to. I remember on one of the first nights I spent in my dorm room, I was so overwhelmed with the homesickness I was experiencing that upon hearing a guy playing bagpipes outside my dorm room, I began to cry. I think it had finally sunken…
