If you have not heard yet, I am the one who filmed Jennifer Schulte, the alleged woman dubbed BBQ Becky. Hi. My name is Michelle Dione. I’m a journalism student, photographer and co-owner of a entertainment media company called Dope Era Magazine.
For the first week after I posted the video, there were only about 50 views and 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 details could be provided.
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 if he needed my help, and he said, “If you want. She’s telling us we can’t barbecue here, we can’t be in the park at all, and 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.
(Updated note Aug. 13, 2024 – I am still unsure if this is true. I asked Deacon later, and he said he had never heard her say this, and my now ex-husband was known to exaggerate. But this was what he said in his interview with Elan, and he has since passed away, so there is no way of confirming. He may have felt he needed to add this exaggeration to make people believe he was being harassed because of his race, which should not have been necessary.)
The aftermath of going viral was mind-blowing. It was good that we did not go viral immediately 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 firsthand a potentially tragic event unfolding due to a woman playing victim to cause potential police aggression. Her act 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 had 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 ifs” 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, and talking to the community. Meanwhile, I had finals coming up and three articles to write. I was so overwhelmed.
We also had strangers publicly post our home address and my personal information on Facebook to try to shame me into taking the video down. One day, a man was digging in our trash loudly so 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 Oakland community came together and put together “Barbecuing While Black,” where families and friends barbecued, danced, and celebrated at Lake Merritt. I had no idea that so many people in Oakland felt unsafe gathering at the park, and 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 worldwide. 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.
Read more on the story written by me in The Root, “When Barbecuing and Living While Black Becomes a Crime”
