Ford Foundation president: Many White CEOs are blind to the Black talent around them

Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, has worked on Wall Street and now runs one of the best known philanthropic organizations in the world. So he knows the top 1%.

But he grew up in the bottom 1% and the distance between those two worlds “has never been greater,” as he noted in a New York Times opinion piece this week.

As a Black man, Walker has seen how structurally reinforced White privilege is and how it has held Black America back.

“We have to recognize that privilege, which is basically a status that most white men in this country enjoy, is a barrier. Their own privilege is a barrier to our advancement,” Walker told CNN Newsroom’s Poppy Harlow on Friday.

White CEOs, he asserts, are often blind to the talent around them because of their own privilege and background. “They don’t see themselves in a Black executive,” he said.

Dozens of companies don’t have any African-Americans in senior management, let alone Black CEOs or board members, Walker noted.

“Many White CEOs say things to me, like, ‘I’m a self-made man. I did this all on my own.’ You started with skin color of white in a society that has a legacy of White supremacy. This is what we must talk about.”

More broadly, he suggests, Americans need to reckon with ever-widening income inequality that racism exacerbates, and understand the damage it does to society and democracy.

“At the heart of the American Dream is hope. And inequality asphyxiates [hope]. It makes us feel that the institutions and system are rigged … for the wealthy and the powerful,” Walker said.

Those with privilege should take a hard look at why tax and economic policies often compound the advantages they enjoy while exacerbating the disadvantages of working class and poor Americans, especially people of color, he said.

Neither Corporate America nor society at large can deny racism any longer, Walker added. He believes there will have to be a reckoning when it comes to race in order for African-Americans to have a fair shot at building assets and making lasting strides professionally.

“It is the work of the next decade for Corporate America and all Americans to help this nation heal from its division, heal from our history, but understand that together we can be a better America,” Walker said.