If you have not heard yet, I am the one who filmed Jennifer Schulte, the alleged woman dubbed BBQ Becky.
For the first week after I posted the video, there was only about 50 views, very little attention on my social media posts. I worked with fellow Oakland writer Joy Elan to interview my husband and me and write about the story so that more background detail could be put out.
On April 29, 2018, my husband, Kenzie Smith, sent me a text saying “if I go to prison, this is who did it to me” sending a picture of Schulte. I called him immediately and asked him if he needed my help, and he said “if you want. She’s telling us we can’t barbecue here, she’s telling us we can’t be in the park at all and that we are going to jail. She won’t leave.”
At the time I did not know she had already been there for about an hour pretending to be on the phone with police while getting into the two men’s faces (my husband’s friend “Deacon” Onsayo Abram had been at the scene first) telling them they belonged in jail and she owned the park. I did not know she had uttered the “N” word saying “Oh great another n***er” when my husband arrived. Here is the backstory that Joy Elan wrote.
The aftermath of going viral was mind-blowing. It was a good thing we did not go viral right away because we needed that first week to process everything that had happened. For one thing, our twin 18-year-old daughters had tagged along and seen first hand a potentially tragic event unfolding due to a woman playing victim to cause potential police aggression. Her act had made it clear to us that she had a plan and was using her ability as a white woman to play a victim and attempt to criminalize two black men who were not doing anything to her.
We were not sure what the park codes were, it all just seemed too ridiculous. We knew that despite if there was a park code making charcoal a violation, it was hardly worthy of a crime to call the police and attempt to get these men arrested.
That first week my entire family tried to digest everything that happened. My daughter said, “Ma, I had no idea you could be so obnoxious.” Then she said, “You are a real GOAT (greatest of all time).”
Despite the admiration of our daughters, the incident left me emotionally drained. The entire week after the event I had a migraine every day. I had to skip class, and refused to talk about what happened to anyone who did not know. At times I laughed at the utter ridiculousness of it all, other times I cried with “what if’s” playing in my mind. What if it had not been those professional officers who responded. What if I was not able to arrive at the scene.
After the video went viral, we had to juggle many days of media attention, interviews, talking to the community. Meanwhile, I had finals coming up and three articles to write. I was so overwhelmed.
We also had strangers posting our home address and my personal information on Facebook publicly to try and shame me into taking the video down. One day, a man was digging in our trash loudly so that my husband could hear him. The man kept demanding my husband take the video down.
Despite that, other than a small group of social media supporters for Jennifer Schulte who claimed she was wrongfully targeted for harassment and only concerned about the environment, most people gave us great support. The community of Oakland came together and put together “Barbecuing While Black” were families and friends barbecued, danced and celebrated at Lake Merritt. I had no idea that so many people in Oakland had felt they were not save gathering at the park, many people were so grateful.
While the day I recorded the now famous BBQ Becky video was surreal, it has been a great lesson for me, my family, the community and even many people around the world. I am grateful I was able to turn what could have been another tragic story into a happy ending. As a matter of fact, this is not the ending, it is just the beginning.
