Difficult People and Bullies: Meet La Chancleta
My friend, Dr. Violet Jiménez Sims, once said:
“ Difficult people are not truly sad or deeply hurt inside. They are difficult because WE allow them to be! Literally, because they can, they will get away with it. Research shows that difficult people get the best hours/shifts at jobs, salary increases (even if not deserving), and many everyday-life benefits. Difficult people navigate life knowing that most people will give them what they want to avoid a confrontation. They start conflict fearlessly, because they know most of us have been conditioned to take the high road. When called out on their lies, hypocrisy, or other bad behavior, they pretend to be offended, hurt, insulted, incredulous. Then the gaslighting kicks into high gear. Difficult people are opportunists. For that reason, I think it’s a public service to confront people and call them out on their bullshit.”
January 6th was a dark day in U.S. history. America saw the epicenter of our democracy ransacked, desecrated, vandalized. Hundreds of rioters purportedly defending their right to protest and assemble (albeit not peaceably as stated in the Constitution) threatened the lives of our legislators and compromised the security of our most sacred civic duty, the certification of the electoral college.
Latinos in particular, took to social media to point out how the current state of affairs resemble staged coups throughout Latin American. Except that on U.S. soil, it was Americans not foreign intervention, who were responsible for the insurrection. Conversely, others invoked the simpler times when defeat was met with graciousness or when a scandal was followed by a prompt resignation. I too, (the hopeless nostalgic vintage buff that I am), miss those days when people lost with honor.
However, if we were to bring back the days of civility, we need to revert back…way back to a time before difficult people climbing the proverbial ladder were stopped, or perhaps earlier, when unruly children were scolded and dare I say, disciplined*.
People have compared our now departed ex-president to the likes of a child who is having a tantrum because he doesn’t know how to lose or perhaps he was never taught what it means to lose. George Carlin once spoke about how we live in a society that worships children to the point when they no longer hear the truth about themselves until they’re in their twenties when their boss says, “Clean the shit outta your desk and get the fuck out.” He attributes this to the way in which we have overprotected children from hearing those all too important character building words like “you lost, Bobby, you’re a loser” and instead, calling the loser of a game “the last winner.”
Throughout my life as a childhood educator, I have seen the Donald Trumps of the world coming up the ranks. Spoiled, difficult children who treat their teachers like hired help and school directors forever bowing down to every demand and desire these children (and their parents) command. Language is glossed so that if a child was difficult or even a bully, we needed to understand him, instead of simply warning him to stop. If a child was unruly, we needed to negotiate instead of telling parents (and the child himself) that such behaviors were simply unacceptable. The flags were seen but ignored. We simply sat in silence, passing the buck, not taking the apodictic bull by the horns. Education, especially private education, has become a dangerous endeavor of pleasing the customer rather than educating children.
Which brings me to a pivotal point. We the people, in order to form a more perfect union need for parents, educators, and decent people all over to step up and halt the antics perpetrated and perpetuated by people of the likes of our former president; people who perhaps have never heard a “no” in their entire lives and were raised with a sense of entitlement so powerful, even grown ass adults feared confronting them. Let us not forget that during his stint as a reality TV “star”, our former president engaged in bullying participants, who in turn, were more than happy to submit to someone who stripped away their humanity. This, in hopes of basking in the glory of reality stardom, even if for a fleeting minute. Bullying and difficult people thus, not only became the norm in reality TV, it permeated our American ethos from the classroom to the boardroom. Difficult children, becoming difficult co-workers, who in turn would become bully bosses, ruling with no consequence and zero accountability. Toxic work environments are now the standard, upheld by the silent agreement that the proverbial boat will always remain unrocked.
Nothing embodies silence is violence than the events that transpired on January 6th in the hands of a niño engreido who never received un par de chancletazos in his lifetime, whose actions went forever unchecked and celebrated by adulators who befriend bullies as a survival tactic to avoid becoming targets themselves. When I was an educator, it was the cadre of mean girls who fawned all over the boss, a bully herself. She had her bootlickers who in turn tormented those who were not part of the clique, creating a culture where you were either with them or against them. Except, in the case of the insurrection, the Capitol was no high school cafeteria and the clique was a carefully organized mob of thousands.
I agree with my hermamiga. We need to engage in the public service of confronting difficult people. Confrontation is uncomfortable but sometimes absolutely necessary. Otherwise, we cannot pretend to be shocked when the defiant child one day becomes our irrepressible commander-in-chief. Furthermore, we cannot act so surprised when we see a person embolden others to commit acts of violence. The same way the difficult people and their enablers band together, we the people, the decent people must band together to stop them. If the saying goes, it takes a village then others must accept when the village unanimously agrees that a parent is raising an asshole. The insurrection and its subsequent acquittal should be a cautionary tale for those in power who seamlessly allow difficult people (or assholes in the making) get their way unquestioned and uncontested.
*I am not endorsing corporal punishment nor child abuse. However, WE Latinos are all too familiar with the meaning of la chancleta (or chancla as many of my non-Dominican brethren say) even when we were never at the receiving end of such.
