It seems, and I may be wrong about this but, many of the high profile handicappers we hear about have won one or more of the major contests and use that as their springboard to bigger and better pick selling opportunities. Obviously, there's no restriction on who can enter the major contests so why aren't more minorities winning? I have a friend of Arab descent that won the LeRoys NCAA football contest some years back and although he was approached by one of the pros here at pregame to join forces in the private sector, he was never considered as a candidate in any of the high profile boiler rooms or pick-selling websites.
There no doubt that if someone, be it man, woman, black, white, asian, arab, or whatever, if they can pick winners, they'll have a job. Just look at the forum here, there plenty of guys who make tons of picks in every sport and have yet to hit 50% and how seriously are they taken? And there's a few who are very selective in where and what they focus on and have in fact built strong followings due to their succeses.
This is an industry that rewards winners and despises losers.
Black, white, yellow, brown or whatever color you are: pick winners and you'll be everyone's new best friend.