I doubt that telling the court that you rely on your income or that your job requires you to be at work every day will work... at least not in Massachusetts (your state laws may vary). Your place of work is required to give you fully paid time off for jury duty. If you're self-employed... well, that's another story.

And I think it's fair to point out that all proceedings pertaining to jury selection are recorded, so if you tell the court that you're a racist, you are now on public record as saying that you are, in fact, a racist. Same goes for anything you might not want to come up later on in life.