Goop’s gross gift guide isn’t $2,000 board games. It’s toxic white privilege.
By: Holly Harper
Tags: Feminism, White Privilege, Christmas Gifts, Self Care, Fashion

I saw a headline about Goop’s annual holiday gift guide with Gwyneth’s crystal therapy wands, Chanel handbags, and candles that smell like my dead dog’s asshole. Of course it’s ridiculous. OF COURSE IT IS.

But ridiculous and indulgent aren’t entirely bad.

I like ridiculous and indulgent. I like handmade and thoughtfully designed. I like entrepreneurship.

So, I went to check it out and found it to be pretty standard beauty treatment, fuzzy sweaters, candles, jewelry, and other banal “holiday gift guide” fare. Shrug.

But then I started searching for the founders, designers, and makers behind some of the independent brands. I got through about two dozen before a Black woman popped up. I did find one man of color. What the fuck?

It’s the circle jerk of self-promotion that fills the gaping hole of consumerism where our souls should be.

When Goop, marketing to people of privilege (targeting a wealthy, healthy audience) chooses — yes, chooses — to support and promote products primarily made by other people of privilege, it’s absolutely ghastly. It’s 2020. It’s less than not good enough.

I have no criticism or qualm with any of these talented entrepreneurs who sell their weighted blankets, gorgeous accessories, or curated crystals. Good job following your dreams.

My criticism is that a brand like Goop should be mindful of the need for uplifting marginalized voices and making up for lost time by overpromoting people without privilege.

Yes, you can have the adorable $2,000 Edie Parker glitter acrylic Ouija board. Sure. Cool idea. But how the fuck hard is it to find something equally cool and frivolous made by someone who isn’t a white woman named “Brett” who lives in New York City?

Ok. I’m being harsh again. Maybe it is really hard and Jennifer Heller, Jennifer Meyer, the team at SHAY, Foundrae, Suzanne Kalan, and half a dozen other white women are the only truly talented jewelry designers in the world. It’s probably that.

And I’m pretty sure BIPOC people do not make candles. Guess not.

Do Black people make “fine jewelry?” Nope. Not even these 15 people Vogue found.

Is there a non-white-woman who makes purses and totes? I mean like something you could take to a FANCY party? I don’t think so, neither does Elle.

And it’s probably SUPER hard to find someone selling crystals, incense and other really “earthy” natural ritual products online who is POC. SUPER hard.

And clothes. We just have different sense of “style,” so it might not be easy to find something “Goop” that would be designed by a POC. Y’know. Cosmo tried, and came back with zilch.

Our white voices, products, and access paths to capital are already outsized because of our privilege and class, so when Goop does this thing where they pick hundreds of “products to promote,” and 99% of them are made by chic, white Brooklynites, that fucking sucks.

Oh, they’ll probably go and say, “We featured Black Girl Baking and Estelle Glassware. The cookbooks! The one Korean-American. PLUS, we really care about the Earth, too.”

Sure. Yes, this isn’t 100% bullshit. Just 95%.

Do better.

Merry Christmas.