Black Scottish people

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Black Scottish people
Total population
65,414 – 1.2%(2022 Census) [1]
African: 58,636
Caribbean: 2,214
Black and Other Black: 4,564
Regions with significant populations
Glasgow City 23,743 – 3.8%
City of Edinburgh 10,881 – 2.1%
Aberdeen City 9,419 – 4.2%
Languages
Religion
Predominantly Christianity; minorities follow Islam, Irreligion, Atheism, Baháʼí Faith, Rastafari, Traditional African religions, other religions

Black Scottish people (also referred to as African-Scottish, Afro-Scottish, or Black Scottish) are a racial or ethnic group of Scottish who are ethnically African or Black. Used in association with black Scottish identity, the term commonly refers to Scottish of Black African and African-Caribbean descent. The group represents approximately 1.2 percent of the total population of Scotland. [1]

Contents

Background

Identity

The identity of Black Scottish people has evolved since the arrival of Black people in Scotland as early as the fifteenth century, with significant numbers arriving in the twentieth century after World War II. [2] The development of a cohesive Black Scottish identity has progressed, with Black African and Afro-Caribbean descent the most commonly claimed ancestry involved in the sense of identity. [3] Among other factors, [4] studies into the experiences of Scottish Somalis, who tend to be historically newer immigrant groups to the nation, have shown that ethnoreligious factors can complicate the expression of any monocultural or racial identity of Black Scottish. [5]

Census

Historical Population
YearPop.±%
1991 6,353    
2001 8,025+26.3%
2011 36,178+350.8%
2022 65,414+80.8%
Source: National Records of Scotland [1]
Black Scottish people by census data
Ethnic group 2022 [1] 2011 [6] 2001 [7] 1991 [8]
Number%Number%Number%Number%
Black Scottish people65,4141.20%36,1780.72%8,0250.16%6,3530.13%
—African58,63629,6385,1182,773
Black Caribbean 2,2143,4301,778934
—Other Black4,0183,1101,1292,646
Flag of Scotland.svg  Scotland 5,439,842100%5,295,403100%5,062,011100%4,998,567100%

At the 2022 census, 2,214 identified as 'Caribbean, Caribbean Scottish or Caribbean British', 58,636 identified as falling under the broad 'African' category and 4,018 identified as falling under the 'Other Caribbean or Black' category, for a total of 65,414 making up 1.20% of the Scottish population. Migration from Africa is largely responsible for the growth in the black population in Scotland, with the African population increasing by more than 21-fold since 1991 when ethnic data was first recorded. [1]

According to the 2011 UK Census, Black Scottish people (self-described as African, Caribbean, Black or any other Black background) were numbered at about 36,000. This figure indicates an increase in population of 28,000 Black Scottish since the previous UK census in 2001. [9] The group represented around 0.7% of Scotland's population, compared to 3.0% of the overall UK population. [10] [11]

The 2001 census recorded 1,778 Black Caribbean people, 5,118 Black African people and 1,129 people in the Black Scottish or Other Black category, for a total of 8,025 Black people in Scotland. [12]

The 1991 census recorded 934 Black Caribbean people, 2,773 Black African people and 2,646 people in the Black other category, for a total of 6,353 Black people in Scotland. This represented 0.13% of the total population of Scotland. [8]

Notable Black Scottish people

Arts and entertainment

Military

The diary of World War I veteran Arthur Roberts has been noted as an important historical document, for its preservation of the historical record of one of the earliest known Black Scottish soldiers. [13]

Sport

Association football

The British Guiana-born Andrew Watson is widely considered to be the world's first association footballer of Black heritage (his father was White and mother Black) to play at international level. [14] [15] [16] He was capped three times for Scotland between 1881 and 1882. Watson also played for Queen's Park, the leading Scottish club at the time, and later became their secretary. He led the team to several Scottish Cup wins, thus becoming the first player of Black heritage to win a major competition. [16]

With some brief exceptions, such as Jamaican born Gil Heron at Celtic, Walter Tull signing for Rangers, and John Walker at Hearts, Black players largely disappeared from Scottish football for the next 100 years until the arrival of Mark Walters at Rangers in 1988. Walters arrival at the club resulted in incidents of racial abuse. [17] [18]

The Scotland national team did not call up a second player of Black heritage until Nigel Quashie (Black Ghanaian father and White English mother), made his debut against Estonia in May 2004. He qualified to play for Scotland, due to having a grandfather from Scotland. [19] Subsequently Coatbridge-born Chris Iwelumo (Black father from Nigeria), has also played for Scotland. Other notable players with black heritage who were born in Scotland, or have represented Scotland, include:

Other sports

Miscellaneous

Social and political issues

Discrimination

The group have faced prejudice and racism in Scottish society. In a Strathclyde University survey, almost 45 percent of black Scottish reported experiencing discrimination between 2010 and 2015. [21]

In fiction

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

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  3. Millsom Henry-Waring (2004). Moving beyond Otherness: Exploring the Polyvocal Subjectivities of African Caribbean Women across the United Kingdom (Volume 30 ed.). Hecate. At the group interviews, a video on Black Scottish Identity was selected as a focal point for discussions, as it questioned the nature of African Caribbean subjectivities in the UK.
  4. Minna Liinpää' (2018), "Friendly and Welcoming?: Experiencing Nationalism in Scotland", Nationalism from Above and Below: Interrogating 'race', 'ethnicity 'and belonging in post-devolutionary Scotland, University of Glasgow, p. 213, To some, it's obvious that the two are not mutually exclusive. To others, Black Scottish identity is a contradiction in terms: either you're of this place, Scottish and therefore Scots, or Other, Black.
  5. Emma Hill (2017), "Mapping whiteness, Somali voices and the spaces of Glasgow City", Somali Voices in Glasgow City: Who Speaks? Who Listens?An Ethnography, Heriot-Watt University: University of Edinburgh, p. 295, In the meantime, a whiteness-led categorisation of a Somali person as 'Black' would compound their racialised exclusion from Islam and disregard their self-defined racial identity. Under the White gaze in Glasgow City, Somali people were thus subject to 'hailings' that saw them as doubly Other or as partial subjects, and extended the same categorisations to their occupations of public space.
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  20. The player has appeared for the Scotland national football team
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