It began with a good-natured rant about the Scottish summer weather and has developed into a global conversation about history, diaspora and diversity on both sides of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n
Last week, Torgi Squire uploaded a TikTok post<\/a> that any Scottish parent could relate to: why is it, he asked, that without fail the washout summer weather always improves the week that the kids go back to school?<\/p>\n The 43-year-old high school teacher from Glasgow ended with his usual sign-off, wishing everyone \u201ca belter of a day\u201d, and thought nothing more of it. The internet had other ideas.<\/p>\n The post was picked up by a US weather reporter and Squire\u2019s comments were suddenly filling with African Americans expressing their amazement and delight at discovering a black man with a strong Scottish accent. But it didn\u2019t stop there: black Scots on TikTok<\/a> found themselves flooded with questions from their American cousins and seized the opportunity to respond with high calibre banter, as #blackscottishtiktok generated thousands more posts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a whirlwind,\u201d said Squire, who teaches design and technology. His original post has racked up nearly 4m views, and he\u2019s since welcomed more than 200,000 new followers.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans are kept in a bit of an echo chamber by their media, and their only point of reference for Scotland<\/a> is either Braveheart, Brave or Shrek. They don\u2019t seem to have much awareness of the diaspora, particularly when it comes to the UK, which is maybe why they\u2019ve reacted with so much curiosity.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it\u2019s not just Americans. I\u2019ve had comments from people in England too, so there\u2019s still surprise at a black person with a Scottish accent on both sides of the Atlantic.\u201d<\/p>\n Ellie Koepplinger, who posts about race and politics, says: \u2018Trump has made America so hostile to black people that having so many people talking about their positive experience in Scotland has got a huge amount of interest from people who are really keen to leave the States.\u2019 Photograph: Murdo MacLeod\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Scotland is certainly more diverse than when he was growing up in the 1980s \u2013 \u201cof the 1,400 kids at my secondary school, only four were black and three of them were related to me\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my experience Scotland is a welcoming place and while there is still racism, it\u2019s isolated and Scottish people are very good at calling it out. Perhaps because there are far fewer black people than somewhere like America, we tend to treat each other more like community.\u201d<\/p>\n When Ellie Koepplinger, 28, who posts about race and politics on TikTok, saw the initial interest in Squire\u2019s content, she thought: \u201cThis is going to be huge.<\/p>\n \u201cThen other black Scottish people started to chime in and it was really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n Koepplinger, who grew up in Glasgow and lived in the US for nine years, added her own post<\/a> about being mixed heritage in Scotland: \u201cIt feels like finally people are understanding that we have our own racial politics.\u201d<\/p>\n But the interest from across the Atlantic has a more practical edge, she suggested: \u201cTrump has made America so hostile to black people that having so many people talking about their positive experience in Scotland has got a huge amount of interest from people who are really keen to leave the States.\u201d<\/p>\n The flurry of content had also prompted some fruitful conversations among black Scots themselves, she added. \u201cIt\u2019s been really interesting to hear other Scottish people talk about the racism and the challenges they\u2019ve experienced in Scotland. The black community in Scotland is fairly fragmented because it\u2019s small, but it\u2019s a population that\u2019s excited to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n Roy Wood Jr, comedian and host of CNN\u2019s Have I Got News For You US, has been interviewing black Scots. Photograph: Saul Loeb\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Manny Daphey, a 20-year-old student, soon found his own content getting pushed by the TikTok algorithm, doubling his following as Americans flocked to his videos. \u201cI was pretty blown by surprise, suddenly everyone was interacting and it felt like speaking to my long-lost cousins.\u201d<\/p>\n A few negative comments have been vastly outweighed by a barrage of positivity, he says: \u201cLots of Americans are very intrigued about living in Scotland, saying they want to visit.\u201d Perhaps inevitably, there are also some women who appreciate a handsome face with a Scottish accent. American women can be \u201cvery direct\u201d he says.<\/p>\n When Roy Wood Jr, comedian and host of CNN\u2019s Have I Got News For You US, arrived in Edinburgh a few days ago, he was ready to take in some shows at the festival. Instead, he\u2019s been diverted on to a TikTok odyssey<\/a>, travelling across the central belt to interview black Scots and prove to his fellow Americans they do indeed exist.<\/p>\n In one of his posts Wood makes the point that part of the reason why black Americans don\u2019t know about black Scots is because their schools \u201cbarely teach them about black people in America\u201d, adding: \u201cPeople can laugh about dumb Americans not knowing there are black people in Scotland but this tells us a lot about the differences between education systems and what governments define as history.\u201d<\/p>\n In his interviews with Scottish creators, Wood says a common thread is the sense that black Scots are suddenly able to connect online in a way that wasn\u2019t so familiar in the real world. \u201cComing from the States, I found there\u2019s no black neighbourhood, no exclusive cultural enclave for black people in Scotland, so there was a common feeling of \u2018now we\u2019ve found each other\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Wood tracked down Squire in Glasgow and the pair made a post together. \u201cIt\u2019s an opportunity for black people across the whole diaspora to converse with one another.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe conversations I\u2019ve had in the past week have really enriched my life,\u201d added Squire. \u201cIt makes me happy that people are coming together.\u201d<\/p>\n