BBQ Becky

Confirmed 378,631

Part of a series on White Cop-Caller Nicknames. [View Related Entries]

About

BBQ Becky, also known as White Woman Calling the Cops, refers to a series of photoshop memes of a woman in sunglasses calling the police in a park on a group of African American people having a cookout in an Oakland, Ca park. The image has been edited into photographs of the civil rights milestones as well as captions that mock the woman for calling the police.

Origin

On April 29th, 2018, YouTuber Michelle Dione posted a video entitled "White Woman Called Out for Racially Targeting Black Men Having BBQ in Oakland." In the video, a woman in sunglasses called the police, after asking a group of people who were having a cook out to leave a park in Oakland, California. The post (shown below) received more than 1 million views in two weeks.

Spread

Shortly after the video and story was posted online, many compared it to other recent incidents of white people calling the police on African Americans without just cause. On May 11th, comedian and Daily Show correspondent Roy Wood, Jr tweeted ^[1] the image of the woman next to the image of the Black Guy on the Phone meme. He added the comment, "Black Twitter Meme Council, I respectful propose that 'Black Man on Phone' be replaced with 'White Lady Spoils BBQ'." The post (shown below, left) received more than 6,200 retweets and 27,000 likes in three days.

The following day, Twitter^[2] user @TimBarnes451 tweeted an image of Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman giving a graduation commencement speech next to the photograph of the woman. They captioned the post "'Hi, I'd like to report a graduation.'" The post (shown below, center) received more than 1,200 retweets and 6,000 likes in two days.

On May 13th, Twitter^[3] @PrestonMitchum tweeted an image of the woman at Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington in 1963. The post (shown below, right) received more than 10,000 retweets and 37,000 likes in 24 hours.

"BBQ Becky" Nickname

On May 11th, Twitter^[4] user @currentmscook responded to a post about the video. They said, "Please tell me BBQ Becky with the Terminator sunnies was standing across the street crying into her phone." The post (shown below) is the earliest known usage of the nickname, which would eventually become how people referred to the woman.

On May 14th, the Facebook ^[5] account RiseUpAndResist posted a series of photoshops featuring the woman. They commented, "Let's make BBQ Becky famous! 😂😂😂😂😂 #BBQbecky." The post (shown below, left) received more than 1,900 reactions, 5,700 shares and 280 comments.

The nickname and the hashtag "#BBQBecky" became shorthand for the woman (examples below).

BBQ While Black Festival

On May 20th, after the story of the incident made the national headlines, community members of Oakland, California organized a weekend picnic event titled "BBQing While Black," a clever reference to the decades-old colloquial expression "walking while black". Hosted at Lake Merritt, the event was attended by hundreds of visitors from around the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the New York Times.^[6]