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Ford Foundation President Darren Walker discussed social inequality and declining economic mobility in the United States, as well as the role mentorship played in his own success, at a Harvard Institute of Politics forum Tuesday evening.
The discussion was moderated by Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr. — a Harvard professor and director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research — and included opening remarks from HKS Dean Douglas W. Elmendorf. During the event, Walker discussed how rising economic inequality, caused by historic injustices, poses a threat to democracy in the United States.
“One of the real conundrums for those of us who profess to be capitalists, and I am among them, is that capitalism is not working anymore for many people,” Walker said. “Part of it is because of the way in which inequality takes hold in a society through policy, through a sort of social construction that continues to marginalize people who historically have been marginalized and also marginalize people who haven’t been historically marginalized.”
Walker, who spearheaded efforts at the Ford Foundation to focus philanthropic efforts on remedying social inequality, said addressing the issue should be a key priority for philanthropists.
“I believe inequality is among the greatest threats to our democracy,” Walker said. “Inequality asphyxiates hope, and hope is the oxygen of democracy.”
Walker said the decline of the American dream, which he referred to as the “mobility escalator,” is fueling political divisions.
“The escalator has stopped moving for far too many people, and it has stopped moving for people for whom it always moved,” Walker said. “Today, the escalator has stopped for a lot of white Americans, and that’s what is different about today, and that’s what is infecting our politics, too.”
“Black folks have never felt entitled to get on the escalator,” Walker added. “We have a history where Black business owners who got on the escalator — and started riding it and became prosperous — found that their communities were burned down.”
Gates added that in addition to the new frustrations in politics, the rise of discrimination against minority groups in the United States are connected to this “diminishment of hope.”
“Hopelessness leads to desperation. Hopelessness leads to the need to scapegoat,” he said. “It’s no accident the rise of antisemitism, the rise of anti-Black racism, homophobia, etc. etc., anti-trans sentiment, are related exactly to the diminishment of hope.”
During the event, Walker and Gates also discussed the important role mentors played in their professional lives. Gates said that when students ask him for “the secret to your success,” he refers to such mentors.
Walker, an openly gay Black man, similarly attributed his successes in his professional life to his “amazing mentors,” who he said “had a lot to do” with his becoming President of the Ford Foundation nearly a decade ago.
“I think one of the ways to gain mentors is to work really hard. There is no shortcut to that,” Walker said. “And there is definitely no shortcut for a Black person in America to that.”
—Staff writer Thomas J. Mete can be reached at thomas.mete@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @thomasjmete.
