Making friends in the neighborhood

Recently I became intrigued with the reason behind the lack of diversity amongst my friends. Other than a Japanese sushi chef my friends are overwhelmingly white (as an aside, never take a sushi chef to a sushi restaurant for lunch, it's a recipe for disaster).

I joined a discussion group, in a civic center near my home, that aimed to address racism and build bridges across ethnic groups. Living in one of the most diverse neighborhoods of my city in which white people are the minority, I expected this discussion group to be a representative sample. Instead, arriving a few minutes late, I was greeted with a sea of white faces. Dejected after this initial meeting I decided to give up on the group. It was obviously not a forum in which blacks, Hispanics or Asians felt comfortable and over the course of the evening it did seem contrived. At this point, other than going around knocking on people's doors, I'm really at a loss as to what to do...