Multnomah County employee Tracey Wilkie, a Native American, experienced the first signs of racism shortly after she was hired. She says a co-worker told her the only reason she got the job was that she was "the only buffalo hunter around here."

Tori Lopez felt it too. She said she regularly faced insensitive racial remarks or treatment when working at the county's Department of Community Justice. Five years ago, she recalled, a colleague asked Lopez why she was so brown. When Lopez told the co-worker it was probably because she was Mexican, she replied: "Are you sure it's not because you're full of shit?"

Their stories are too familiar at the county, its leaders say.

Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury said the public should hold her accountable for the steps she takes to correct systemic racism at the county.

Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury acknowledged last week that the county has subjected employees of color to institutional racism. She asked the public to hold her accountable for making strides to solve the problem by April.

Her statements followed the ouster of one of the county's highest-ranking black officials, public health director Tricia Tillman, who called on county leaders to investigate systemic racism.

In the wake of Tillman's claims, The Oregonian/OregonLive interviewed 18 current and former Multnomah County employees of color across six departments.

Nearly all said they have been routinely subjected to insensitive remarks and hostile treatment in the workplace. Many said white co-workers got encouragement and mentoring that they did not receive. Others said they missed out on promotions or feared that they would be singled out because of their race if the county needed to downsize.

County statistics show they had reason to worry.

In the past four years, black county employees were ousted from their jobs at higher rates than other workers. Five percent of the county's nearly 500 black workers were terminated in the past two years, a county report says.

Black employees hired during that period were let go after their probationary periods at a much higher rate than other workers – more than 2.5 times as often as others in the county workforce.

The most recent county job satisfaction survey, from 2015, found that nearly one in five employees said that the people they work with fail to respond appropriately to discriminatory behavior. One quarter of Latinos and one third of black employees reported they felt that way.

One out of five county workers surveyed said they didn't feel safe speaking up about discriminatory or unethical practices in the workplace. Native Americans were by far the least likely to feel safe speaking up, the survey found.

Proving that racism is the factor behind negative repercussions in the workplace is difficult for workers who say that is what happened to them. County managers accused of mistreating employees of color based on their race are usually absolved.

Almost 90 percent of racial discrimination complaints against the county filed with the state labor bureau since 2010 have been ruled unsubstantiated by state civil rights investigators. In multiple cases, investigators found the workers who complained did suffer negative consequences at work. But because their bosses or co-workers did not say they were motivated by racial considerations or make explicit remarks about race, the investigators had no choice but to conclude that there was no discrimination.

The county has paid large sums to some workers who complained they were subjected to racist treatment, including Tillman. But all those payments were contingent on the employee keeping mum about what happened.

Kafoury, who is white, told The Oregonian/OregonLive Friday that she plans to make major changes within the next six months. The chair has directed that all race-related employment complaints go to Chief Operating Officer Marissa Madrigal's office.

Kafoury also pledged to hire an outside consultant "with expertise in dismantling structural racism in public institutions" to review employment practices. Among other things, the consulting firm will examine whether the county's decentralized human resources system is part of the problem.

"What I would offer to you and to the public is to look at where we are in six months and see whether we've made the changes that I'm committing to make today," Kafoury said. "Changing a culture of 6,000 plus employees is not going to happen over night ... but I am going to fix it."

Kafoury emphasized that Multnomah County is not the only local organization plagued with institutional racism.

"I'm putting myself out there," she said. "Hold me accountable."

The county came under fire two weeks ago after a September 7 letter from Public Health

Multnomah County Public Health Director Tricia Tillman called on county officials to investigate systemic racism after she was asked to leave.

Director Tricia Tillman surfaced. Tillman was forced out by Health Director Joanne Fuller after Tillman's subordinates complained about her. Fuller, who is white, retired abruptly after Tillman's complaint went public. She did not respond to multiple requests for comment Friday.

In her letter, Tillman asked county leaders to investigate what she called a pattern of "unjust, unfair and disparate" treatment of employees of color, particularly African Americans, The Skanner first reported on September 12.

The next week, Tillman reached a settlement in which the county agreed to keep her on the payroll at $149,000 a year plus benefits for 11 more months, pay her an additional $25,000, give her $3,000 worth of consulting to find a new job and write her a letter of reference. In exchange, Tillman gave up her right to sue the county.

On Monday, the county's Chief Human Resources Officer Travis Graves, who is white, released a report that found no evidence that Tillman experienced "different treatment based on race." County Commissioner Loretta Smith, former state Sen. Margaret Carter and state Sen. Lew Frederick, D-Portland, all of whom are black, held a press conference Wednesday challenging this finding.

"If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, then that's a damn rat," Carter told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "I don't know how you could call it anything other than absolute racism."

The Oregonian/OregonLive obtained and reviewed 125 pages of notes from Tillman's human resources file. They show Fuller and the health department human resources chief documented concerns expressed by Tillman's subordinates for more than a year. They assigned a consultant to observe Tillman and coach her on strategies, the records show. Most of the complaints centered around what officials said was Tillman's failure to give subordinates clear direction. The records also show that Tillman felt the two women who reported directly to her were resisting changes she wanted to bring to the department. In October 2016, the records say, Tillman told Fuller the two were "working against her."

Tillman was not alone in her feelings that employees of color are treated poorly.

More than a dozen workers spoke about experiencing or witnessing racism before the county's board of commissioners. Two of them were among the 18 who spoke to The Oregonian/OregonLive about their experiences.

When long-time juvenile justice counselor Daryl Winchester couldn't help a white colleague locate a co-worker, the man shot back: "F--- you and the boat you came over on," Winchester recalls. "I don't give a shit about you laying all over each other all chained up," he said before finishing with "a Santa Claus laugh," Winchester said.

Determining whether workplace bullying or negative interactions with colleagues and managers are tied to race can be difficult even for the employees of color experiencing it, said Andrea Archuleta, a Latina parole and probation officer.

Archuleta said colleagues have told her that her speaking Spanish in the workplace makes them uncomfortable. They call her "passionate" because she speaks loudly and with her hands. One colleague told her the county only hired her for her Spanish speaking skills.

"Then I'm constantly questioning myself, feeling like I'm doing something wrong," Archuleta said. "That's a common experience with other employees of color."

Talking to other employees of color who had similar experiences reassured her. Maybe it was about race, she thought. Maybe she wasn't crazy to question that.

"Racism is real," said Raymond De Silva, chair of Multnomah County's Employees of Color Executive Committee. Started two decades ago, the group helps develop county policies and hosts cultural celebrations to promote a peaceful and equitable workplace. It started after employees of color came together to address their shared challenges in the workplace and the hostility they experienced based on race.

The group includes 230 employees of color from all over the county who meet regularly to discuss challenges. Many employees of color say they have experienced a lack of support from managers and a dearth of opportunities for promotions compared to their white colleagues, De Silva said.

COUNTY EFFORTS

The county plans to hire an outside consulting team to examine its hiring, training and retention practices and evaluate how managers and supervisors are trained, Madrigal said. The team will include experts on large institutions and racism.

When human resources officials receive a complaint about an employee, they typically investigate the intent of the alleged wrongdoer, Madrigal said. But that doesn't work when it comes to discrimination complaints, she said.

Madrigal said the county needs to weigh the impact of discriminatory statements or treatment more than the intent. Racism today, she said, is often unintentional.

"You cannot say these things," "Madrigal said. "It doesn't matter if you meant to."

The county also lacks a centralized or uniform process for how complaints are handled, Madrigal said. All large departments have their own human resources director, who reports to the department director instead of a central human resources director.

"That's like the fox guarding the hen house," said Thach Nguyen, a former Department of Community Justice senior manager who is Asian. He left the county workforce in 2013 and received a settlement of more than $100,000 which bars him from talking about his case.

Madrigal said the decentralized system was meant to address the different business and employee needs within the county. Still, she acknowledged that the system can result in different practices from department to department that may not be "up to snuff."

"The structures and the process we have in place to address complaints of discrimination based on protective class were not resulting in satisfactory outcomes for the people who were on the receiving end of really abhorrent behavior," Madrigal said.

--Jessica Floum

503-221-8306