Woman disgusted after racist date told her she didn’t ‘smell like black people’

A woman was left disgusted after a racist date told her she ‘didn’t smell like black people’.

Zaina Nawanga had been set up with her friend’s friend for a date in Glasgow city centre, the Daily Record reports.

The 25-year-old said the pair had gone to dinner and were travelling home when the man said he ‘really liked her’.

But things took a sinister turn when he told her: "Black people tend to have a certain smell, but you don’t."

Zaina, who lives in Balloch Loch Lomond in Scotland, shared the incident on TikTok and said she instantly froze and felt scared sitting in the passenger seat of his car.

Speaking to the Daily Record she said: “I had travelled down by train to Glasgow for our second date.

"We had gone to dinner then he was going to drive me home, that's when he told me he really liked me.

“When I asked why he liked me, he said 'because black people tend to have a certain smell, but you don’t'."

She added: “It was disgusting. I felt scared and didn’t really know what to do or say. He really thought he was paying me a compliment.

“What does that even mean?

“I can be quite hot headed when it comes to racism, but in the moment I just froze.

“I asked to get out of the car at Glasgow Central. He kept asking me ‘what did I do?’ as if he didn’t realise he had just been so blatantly racist.”

Sadly, this wasn’t the first time Zaina had experienced racism in Scotland.

Having moved to Balloch from Uganda aged 10 she says she has dealt with many incidents of casual racism.

She said that while she doesn’t think Scotland is an overtly racist nation, she has experienced situations where people have paid her misguided compliments that she believes is casual racism.

Zaina says she feels there is still much to be done to tackle ignorance when it comes to matters of race and equality.

She said: “I wouldn’t say Scotland is racist nation but there is still a problem with people not thinking before they speak.

“Before I met my current boyfriend I was seeing a guy and his mum kept telling me she would ‘love caramel grandchildren’.

“What do I even say to that?

“Sometimes people think they are being complimentary to me but they don’t stop to consider if what they are about to say is racist.

She continued: “I actually think a lot of the time people don’t mean to be horrible.”

“Sometimes when a person doesn’t know me, they will ask ‘where are you from?’ before ‘how are you?’

“That is fine if someone is interested in where you stay, but you wouldn’t ask a white person where they are ‘really’ from.

“My wee town is great but when I venture out of it people still do make annoying comments and ask ignorant questions.”

Speaking about the progress made in response to the recent equality movement Zaina said: “I feel like the younger generation are far less ignorant, and take a more cautious approach in how they speak to people.

“People are calling out racism when they see it more than ever - but it does still happen.

“You can see the world is moving forward and we are making progress.”