BBQ Becky isn't going anywhere any time soon.
Cosplayers, geeks and super fans came to Atlanta to celebrate their love for pop culture at the annual Dragon Con fest over Labor Day weekend. But what they didn't expect was a BBQ Becky cosplayer to hilariously disrupt festivities at the popular event.
After a white woman harassed a group of black men barbecuing at Oakland's Lake Merritt Park, memes dubbing the woman "BBQ Becky" began to circulate online. The late April incident was part of a seemingly growing epidemic of white people calling the authorities on black people for everything from selling water to merely existing in predominantly white spaces.
Members of the Black Geeks of Dragon Con Facebook group decided to take a group photo when BBQ Becky photobombed them, reports HuffPost. Tazra Rose didn't know what reaction she would get if she portrayed Jennifer Schulte aka BBQ Becky at the convention.
“When I saw the articles and memes back when it first happened, I noticed how much I look like BBQ Becky,” Rose told Big Shiny Robot. “I knew it would [be] an easy cosplay to assemble, but I didn’t know how it would be received.”
One of the group's members who knew Rose invited her to the shoot held by photographer Otis Casey, according to Mashable. But unlike the real BBQ Becky, Rose knew her lane.
“For the photo shoot, I was adamant that the organizers give permission for … me to be there as BBQ Becky because I didn’t want to actually crash the event,” she said. “Even with permission, I was nervous going out to the photo shoot. I didn’t know how it would be received at Dragon Con in general and specifically at that event.”
The shoot went well with prominent black characters like Killmonger, Black Panther, Green Lantern and Storm making appearances.
“Once people noticed I was there, people were laughing and cheering and clapping. Everyone seemed to immediately get the joke,” she said. “Someone, I’m not sure who, moved me to where I was when Otis Casey got the picture that’s gone viral.”
Casey didn't expect the photo to go viral. In a matter of days, it was all over Facebook and Twitter. But he realizes this kind of thing–white people calling the police for no reason at all–is no laughing matter.
"Unfortunately, outside of Dragon Con this will eventually happen again minus the laughs," Casey admitted.
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