One of our newest syndicated columnists, Keli Goff (check out her columns here), wrote a column last week criticizing Gwyneth Paltrow for her suggestion that “everything in my life that’s good is because I worked my ass off to get it and to maintain it.”
As Goff noted, Paltrow was born to Hollywood royalty and credits “Uncle Steven” for landing one of her first film roles (that’s Steven Spielberg, for those keeping score at home), advantages most people don’t have to help them along. She went on to write “that like a lot of privileged people, [Paltrow’s] under the delusion that she earned everything that she has, and then has the audacity to gloat about it.”
Well, this obviously upset Dilbert creator Scott Adams, who wrote on his blog that Goff is wrong to attack poor Gwyneth, claiming her column lacks the proper context.
Adams went on to write this:
“It’s worth noting, in the interest of context, that Goff was born with a few advantages herself. She’s beautiful, smart, and apparently had the resources she needed to make it through NYU and go on to get her Master’s Degree at Columbia University. If you ask Goff what made her successful, would she credit her hard work and leave out her other obvious advantages? Or would she answer honestly and say, “I worked hard for what I’ve achieved, but it didn’t hurt that I’m a brilliant, smoking-hot African-American woman in 2011.” I’m just saying that people don’t generally talk about their advantages. To do so would be…wait for it…gloating.”
So Adams seems to be making the case that the only reason why Goff went to NYU and got her master’s degree at Columbia University is because she is a “brilliant, smoking-hot African-American woman.”
So what do you think? Should Goff has not been so quick to criticize Paltrow when Goff herself has the advantage of being a “brilliant, smoking-hot African-American woman?”
