observed about 450 years ago that it always makes a difference whose ox is being gored. It sure does.

Let me tell you of an experience a friend of mine had about twenty years ago. I’m going to call him Charlie just so I can refer to him more easily; that’s not his name.

Anyway, Charlie was working for the state of California at the time it became policy to hire and promote people without regard to anything but race, gender, or ethnicity.

Charlie applauded the idea. He said at the time that it was only right to give these folks a helping hand.

And whenever I raised the issue of: what about the victims of that policy? — you know, the ones who would have otherwise gotten the job. Or the ones who would have otherwise gotten the promotion — Charlie always pooh poohed it. They had it already made, he used to say. How about giving somebody else a chance?

And then Charlie himself began being passed up for promotion by people who had nowhere near his qualifications or experience, but they did have the "right" color, gender, or ethnicity.

The first time it happened, Charlie was a little upset. But not much. After all, somebody else was being given a chance to make it. The rest didn’t matter.

But as time went by, and as it happened more and more frequently to Charlie, it did begin to matter to him. In fact, it mattered so much that Charlie retired five years before he had planned to. A bitter man.

You know, he and I never talk about that episode in his life. I don’t raise the subject because I don’t want him to get angry. And he never talks about it, I think, because he’s never gotten over the realization that he’d been had.

So you see, it does make a difference whose ox is being gored. Right, Charlie?

Think about it.