There is a glaring eye all Scottish university students know well. When an outsider makes a mocking comment about our nationality, a shiver forms the hottest flush down our spine. We glance at each other, eyes wide, a collective, "Did you just say that?" in our souls. With clenched fists and tongues so tightly bitten they might as well be locked in a safe, we seethe in anger. But here's the thing: it's not an all-consuming rage. No, no, we're Scottish. It's more like an unwelcome jab between the eyes – like being unexpectedly asked to pronounce "loch" by someone who has never dared to open a dictionary.
Of course, Edinburgh University is shocked —shocked! —that its most privileged students could be so out of touch. Less than 25% of students enrolled are Scottish, and honestly, I'm personally surprised more of us aren't doing cartwheels down Princes Street to get in. But why would they care about us when they've got ‘widening participation schemes’ to tick off? Those are fun to look at, but claiming they're ‘expanding accessibility’ while still forgetting to mention the absence of actual, you know, Scots, that's not so inclusive now, is it?
After last month's embarrassing request from the university to their posh students to be slightly less condescending toward Scottish students, I thought maybe we should start a new tradition at Edinburgh University. Think of it like the Highland Games, but instead of tossing cabers, we're hurling insults in class. “Oh, you're from London?” I'd say. “How exotic! Have you ever seen a real, live Edinburgh person? I hear they only come out when it's foggy.”
Edinburgh University has often encouraged young people from the South-East of London, who just happen to be posh, to explore the hallowed halls where Arthur Conan Doyle once rubbed elbows with Robert Louis Stevenson. A Scottish literature lecturer once told me that as students, Doyle and Stevenson got into a fight outside of the World's End on the Mile after Stevenson suggested that the first few drafts of the Sherlock series would have much better traction were they set in the Caribbean. Talk about giving underprivileged minds an inch.
As a first-generation university student, born and bred just 20 minutes outside of the city centre, to go from celebrating and taking pride in my Scottish culture as a child to being mocked and belittled for simply not being English and rich, a bitter Scotswoman makes. From snide remarks about my hometown to less-than-sympathetic imitations of my voice and being asked repeatedly, ‘Do you have an accent?’, I've seen it all.
When I tell people I'm from Portobello, it's as though I've just told them I've been to Narnia. “Good golly!” they screech in their ‘I'm that perfect blend of born with a silver spoon in my mouth' and 'I just stepped out of my local Pret on King's Road’ accent. You know, the one where every vowel sounds like it's been polished for optimal clarity, and the 'r's' have been banished to the far corners of the dictionary.
“PORTOBELLO?! But that's so far away! What do you do all day, play on the slots?” Buying a dose of reality is something no price can pay, even for students whose parents have a Lordship title and a whippet called Russel.
Not every posh Southern English student has given me a reason to practice my passive-aggressive grin (although I'm an expert now). But take the popular student tabloid The Edinburgh Tab, that gem of student journalism. They remind me well of the absurdity of it all.
The editorial team overseeing the Tab's Southern-central content aren't merely guilty of forgetting that Scottish students exist; they are guilty of Southern-washing Edinburgh University, exemplifying a reluctance, an allergy even, to representing the Scottish student demographic. In one post, a commenter wrote, “Not a Scot in sight,” in a video asking students what they are wearing on campus. In response, the Tab said this is “as God intended.” Tut tut Tab!
Right. Because it's expected to erase an entire third of your student body for the sake of...fashion? In what world is this the definition of inclusion? As an institution advocating for inclusion and opportunity, how can the University of Edinburgh claim they are going to great lengths to bridge the gap between high and low-income students when their student journalists are at cultural odds?
Doyle and Stevenson would not be proud of their alums, but I sometimes wonder if my lecturer's story was true. I wonder, perhaps, if the ‘fight’ between them occurred because of Stevenson's familial links to gentry. Maybe, like the snobby twenty-somethings of today, Robbie made a similarly snide comment to Doyle about his upbringing in the ‘bad lands’ of Gilmerton.
Regardless, may this Scottish revolution narrowly mirroring a scene of Braveheart continue and thrive. The newly erected Scottish Social Mobility Society are indeed the Robert the Bruce of the digital age. Freedom!
Comments