Stumbled on this thread -
Damn Tanya burr where do I start lol
My vivid memory of her is being 14 years old and meeting her at her London book signing for her baking book
Worst £20 of my life, I saved up two weeks of lunch money to go to her book signing on oxford street
When it was my turn, I was buzzing to meet her after watching her since I was 11 years old
I recall telling her ‘thank you for being a source of positivity in my life’ ....
she didn’t even smile? she was like thanks with a stiff lip response (photo similarity attached for context) and it .. really hurt
I know it may not feel that my ethnicity/race matters yet as a young, impressionable 14 year old girl whos brown and didnt have any bipoc people to look up to at a young age in a world where white people were the standard of YouTube, she looked at me up and down and responded with that stiff lip smile and my heart sank
I instantly felt like I wasn’t good enough for her, the encounter heightened the internalised colourism and hatred I had for my non Caucasian skin tone. I was the only person of colour and she smiled and hugged every other teenage girl, who were all white. Yet I didn’t receive the same. No 14 year old should ever internalise or be made to feel like that, especially from someone they admired and supported
Anyways I’m over it now I guess, after that I never watched her again cause I was traumatised from the encounter and only now have I processed what happened at 19 years old, don’t get me wrong what happened was wrong.
I don’t want people to respond to this saying oh that’s ridiculous it’s not cause of your skin tone, cause it’s dismissive and really felt like that when someone looks you up and down and doesn’t even smile at you whilst you watch every Caucasian girl, who looks like Tanya get a hug and massive smile and thanks and you walk away with such an unfortunate exchange of energy