Probably a number of different motives. Yes a degree of racism, but also a degree of nepotism and desperation. All those people are unemployed because there's nothing to do except work in government in that town, so of course parents are going to try to get their kids into government positions using their current position of power. Then there'd obviously be a deep chasm of classism, since the government worker class would be on a completely different level than the unemployed class in many ways, and I'm sure they look down their nose at the 'unwashed masses' (who are overwhelmingly black since that's where the south came from).

Unethical? Super unethical. And immoral. And illegal. And virtually everyone in government should be fired and charged personally with 1983/1984 claims.

But also a reminder that we need to remember there's a lot of tragedies in our back yard and they won't go away if we just ignore them.