More than racism on the part of google[1] I would attribute that to it being an hard problem with too many dimensions. About three years ago if you searched "white actors" google would give two full pages of only black people (I have no idea whether the actor part was correct).

Many interpreted this along tribal lines, but likely it is that there is constant tuning and lots of complex constraints.

[1] not to say that you implied the reason was racism, but often it is attributed to something along those lines