I pissed off the internet for daring to talk about my dad.

Me and Dad on vacation circa 1988

This year will mark 14 years since my dad died. The passing of time has been strange, as it’s a bit oxymoronic. I’m not as sad as I was when he initially died, yet I don’t miss him any less. I’ve grown into my own in his absence, and that is bittersweet.

One area that I’ve leaped and bounded through is accepting that I am Bernie Mac’s daughter. Part of accepting that has been talking about him and our relationship. I used to do it out of a sense of duty and obligation. After all, I’m his only child. I am the biggest chunk of his legacy. Who will carry his torch if not I? It was difficult in the beginning. Sometimes I would feel worse after talking about him. Then I would feel this weird mix of pride and shame. Pride that I could say that he is my father, shame for saying that I am his daughter. Memories of high school and college when I was hated and talked about for being his daughter came rushing back. Shouldn’t I be more than that? It took me some years to realize that I am more than Bernie Mac’s daughter. It’s just that being his daughter is a major role of my life. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about it, as I’m the only one who gets to be me.

Having made my peace, I have been much more comfortable with talking about my dad and our relationship. I talk about the good, the bad and the in between. One of the main reasons that I do is because I think there is healing when we share our stories. So now I segue into the point of this piece. Last summer I was a guest on the Can We Talk? podcast. The topic was Healing the Parental Wound & How it Affects Our Adult Relationships. I was more than happy to discuss this as I write a lot about my life in a quest to help others. I get especially excited when it comes to talking about my relationship with my dad because I learned so much from him — both directly and indirectly. I also think I’m in a unique position to offer perspective both because my dad was a celebrity, and he is deceased. I think it’s helpful to allow people to see him as the human he was instead of making him out to be something else simply because he was famous.

I was eager to take advantage of the opportunity to participate when approached by the hosts of the Can We Talk? podcast. I thought it was going to be a great opportunity to share my experiences in a helpful way.

During the podcast, I spoke about how emotionally volatile my dad could be and as a result, I walked on eggshells in our home because it was impossible to know what would set him off. I also shared that I was a sensitive child, and my sensitivity triggered my dad, resulting in him often calling me weak. I shared that as a result, in my adult years my trauma response was to fawn and become a fixer. I shared an anecdote from when I was 9 years old to illustrate. I was bullied both at school and on the school bus and one morning one of the boys on the bus punched me in my eye. When confronting the boy, my father was very protective. However, behind closed doors, he was not. He asked me what I did when the boy punched me. Thinking it was a strange question, I honestly answered, “I cried.” That incensed him. He punched the wall, called me weak, and told me that the next day I better whip that boy’s ass or else he was going to whip mine. I won’t go into more detail because it’s irrelevant. But I thought sharing this story would give an example of what I was talking about. I could not have been more wrong.

In participating in this podcast, I received my first dose of what celebrities’ experience when they participate in interviews. As a member of the public, we see headlines alerting us to something a celebrity said, and we assume that they said that thing in real-time. The truth is, what most likely happens is the celebrity did one interview and from that one interview, dozens of other outlets choose one blurb to create a salacious headline, aka clickbait. They publish a piece centered around that one blurb, often without context to the entire conversation. This makes the public think that the interview happened in real time. The same blurb will make several rounds through different outlets in a span of one week. It looks like this celebrity is going from outlet to outlet saying out-of-the-box things when the truth is they said one thing that was taken out of context and recycled by different outlets to generate traffic and create buzz. Having seen firsthand what it’s like when my dad was alive, I understood the process. But there’s a difference between seeing it happen to someone else and experiencing it for yourself.

I shared so much during that hour-long podcast, but no one talked about it all. And I shared with genuine intentions. My intent was not to demonize my dad. I would never do that. My intent was to share parts of my relationship with my dad in the hopes that others could see parts of themselves, whether they are a parent or a child, know they are not alone, and if necessary, course correct for themselves. I think it’s important for people to see that my dad was more than a famous comedian and he too, made mistakes and how he as a father greatly impacted his daughter’s life.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, outlets from The Jasmine Brand, Willie D podcast, to some lesser-known ones zeroed in on that one anecdote about me getting punched in my eye and my dad calling me weak. They twisted my words and created headlines that read, “Bernie Mac’s Daughter Talks About His Cruelty as a Father,” or “Bernie Mac’s Daughter: He Called Me Weak” I was tabloid fodder for about two weeks. The commenters were even worse. They castigated me; agreeing that I was indeed weak. Not only was I weak, but I was also disrespectful and ungrateful. I was accused of attempting to get rich and even maligning my father’s name. Folks said I needed therapy, and I should be ashamed for throwing salt on my father’s name, especially since he isn’t here to defend himself. I was lumped into that lecherous group of celebrity children who had been coddled, and now my father was rolling over in his grave.

While I didn’t like the experience one bit, I wasn’t upset for myself. I was honestly more concerned about the hosts of the podcast and the integrity of the episode. I didn’t want the negative attention to deter from what I felt was a phenomenal and important discussion. I was a bit disappointed that people didn’t bother to listen to the podcast, but instead pulled that one moment, which was less than a minute, and twist it into something it wasn’t. I’ll also admit that I found it oddly amusing that people felt so strongly about me speaking about my childhood and my relationship with my father. But most of all, I found it amusing that people felt emboldened enough to dare tell me that I have no right to speak about my father.

Thankfully, there were some people who got it. Joe Budden mentioned it on his podcast and while I was fully prepared to be eviscerated, he did the opposite. He spoke candidly from a space of vulnerability and compassion about how he understands that while so many of us were raised that way, it did have detrimental effects on us. I appreciated that.

I’ve noticed several things when it comes to me sharing about Bernie Mac, the father and not the comedian.

People become angry. They direct that anger towards me. They tell me how he’s rolling over in his grave, I have no right to talk about him, and then they try to tell me what he would think and feel about what I’ve said. I don’t want to psychoanalyze people, but I sometimes wonder if the anger is because they’ve heard something that makes them uncomfortable, and not being able to deal with it within themselves or direct it towards him they make me the target. I truly think people want me to see my dad as they do. They want to hear that he was as funny as a dad as he was on stage and screen. They get so angry that they make the mistake of thinking that he would react to me as they are, overlooking how he publicly spoke about how unnecessarily hard he was on me.

People defend him. They work hard to justify his behavior.

Well, he was probably just trying to toughen you up.

He meant well.

He did the best he could.

Nobody’s perfect.

While all true, I often wonder why they can admit that no one (not even my father) is perfect, only to become angry to hear about his imperfections. Truthfully, my dad doesn’t need to be defended. My dad was an intelligent, capable man. He especially doesn’t need to be defended against me. I’ve never attacked my dad, nor would I ever. I have repeatedly said that I understand his intentions. I’m proud of him and who he became as a man. But I also understand that his methods did not always work, and he caused me harm, albeit unintentionally. I am aware enough, and I hold more than enough compassion and understanding to hold space for both. If I shared something about his behavior towards me during my childhood that makes you uncomfortable, understand that is your issue. It is not an invitation to decide you need to interject on his behalf. He admitted long before he died that he was too hard on me, and he apologized to me for it. If he can recognize his own mistakes, surely the public can do the same.

Also, please retire the They did the best he could defense. I hear this justification many times when people speak about the elders in their family. There seems to be this consensus that doing your best erases all harm. I think it’s harmful and dismissive. I won’t even get into my theory of how often we neglect to admit that some people don’t always do the best they can, but merely the best they want to do. I wonder why this justification seems to only go towards the elders. I understand my dad did the best he could, but hell so did I. I was just a child. We seem to operate from the standpoint that children should know better whereas it’s ok that the adults don’t know because they are trying their best.

People see the truth as negative. I find that people tend to dismiss that which makes them uncomfortable. People applaud what they consider “positive” stories. But when they don’t like what they hear? It’s problematic and it’s “negative.” After the podcast, there were lots of protests consisting of “Why is she saying this now?” “I wish folks would stop telling all of their business.” “No one needs this negativity.” I’ve never said my dad was negative. I’ve simply shared who he was with me. Any judgment of negativity came not from me, but from those who heard what I said and decided for themselves that it was negative. It’s interesting to me that these are things people say only when they don’t like what has been said. It’s even more strange because the number one question I receive is “What was it like to have Bernie Mac as a dad?” I’ve learned that most people ask that question to hear stories that make them comfortable, stories that align with whatever image they’ve created in their mind. They are disappointed when my reality doesn’t track. But when I tell something that they think isn’t flattering, it’s called negative and no one’s business. It’s no one’s business either way, so it shouldn’t be a problem if I share.

People almost deify him. People have difficulty with understanding that celebrities are humans. They idolize them due to their fame and money, and many times put them on undeserving and unrequested pedestals. The struggle bus struggles even more once a person dies. People seem to travel to an imaginary land of love & light where you can only talk about the seemingly “good” things about a person posthumously. Saying anything outside of “They were great,” leads people to feel as if you’re speaking ill of the dead. It’s strange to me because they were fully human and no one human being is all bad nor all good. “He’s dead now so why even speak about this?” By that logic, why even speak of the dead at all? We speak because they lived and they mattered. My dad mattered. He mattered most especially to me, and he still does. I would not be fair to my father if I only shared a skewed version of him. His humanity cannot be contained in only the things that make others feel good.

My daddy didn’t raise no punk, so this experience didn’t deter me. I will continue to speak honestly about my dad and our relationship because I honor it so much. As I’ve said, my dad taught me so much, both directly and indirectly. I think it can be so beneficial for people to hear about our relationship and take the lessons we’ve learned. I also understand that there will be people who are uncomfortable with that, and I’m ok with that. That means that either they aren’t ready, or the message isn’t for them. I accept and honor that as well. However, what I will never honor nor accept is others thinking they know my father better than I. He was not the Original King of Comedy to me. He was my dad, and no one gets to tell me who he was as a dad. Just as others have a right to not like what I have to say, I have a right to speak about my dad and our relationship and I’ll do it reminding people, as I always have, chew the meat, spit out the bones. But I’m clear on who and whose I am and who he was to me.