Desegregating Metro's workforce

According to the 2000 census the City of Houston proper has a population that is about 50% white, 25% black, and 5% asian, and a remainder of "other." 37% are "Hispanic of any race." Harris County, which includes most of Metro's "service" area, is about 59% white, 18% black, 5% asian, and a remainder of "other," with about 33% from all groups claiming Hispanic heritage. Given these statistics, one might assume that a large public transportation agency with tens of thousands of employees and a multi-billion dollar budget would draw a workforce sample somewhat reflective of the diverse and multicultural city it allegedly supplies with mobility and transportation.

Such assumptions would be ill-founded. According to the piece of litter some guy in a truck deposited on my front lawn early this morning, Metro only hires black people:

Reyes and others said they do not think hostility or discrimination against Hispanics is a problem at Metro. The work force is 60 percent black; that rises to 80 percent among the ranks of bus and light rail operators.

If Metro operated with stats like that in the private sector and if a few of the demographic categories were switched around it would only be a matter of time before some self-appointed reverend with a do-it-yourself ordination from the internet arrived to picket the place until they paid him to disperse his friendly diversity-cognizant "civil rights" marchers. But Metro already has a diagnosis to justify its institutionalized racism in hiring according to one of its former board members:

Part of the problem, Reyes said, is a matter of prospective employees seeking a "comfort zone." That's easier when many co-workers and supervisors come from the same background as an applicant.

Light rail aficionados - you can now add "comfort zones" to the long list of things that Metro has in common with the streetcar operators of the 19th century.