These youngsters, by starting to discuss this issue, are moving towards the nut of the problem and the difficulties in breaking down prejudice.  Just condemning the incident alone, and finding the purpetrator should not be the end result of what has happened.   Upsetting as such slur words are, they offer an opportunity for promoting human harmony.  Racism mostly exists because of ignorance of the lifestyle of the other.  Metco has been introduced to foster learning in academics, but also to learn not just tolerance of another race, but genuine acceptance of the commuting students as fellow human beings.  Because of the long years of isolation of both groups, they mutually view the other as somehow different and possessing very different social outlooks.  A white student complained of the segregation of the black students at lunchtime, but since the Concord-Carlisle students are in the overwhelming majority, they should not only be superficially inviting, but they should be walking over to the group, stating their name, and asking if they can share their lunch hour with the Metco students.  School faculty can facilitate such social grace.  A few interactions later and maybe black and white can turn to tan.  Do we need another two hundred and fifty years to make true unity happen so we can finally unleash the strength of all our citizens to make a better nation?  As Martin Luther King so eloquently stated in describing the continuing chasm between people of different races:  "How long...Too long.."

White folks with a guilty conscious engaged in affirmative action social engineering that doesn't accomplish anything despite a hefty price tag.

And yes, I have minority friends.  

Driving kids 20 miles each way to a school is a great way to isolate them...there is ZERO chance that they will be able to socialize with these kids, because of thedistance alone.  This misguided attempt to bus them to something better is just making their lives more diificult. Bring thm home to Boston (and race likely has little or nothing to do with th isolation).  

"Last year for example, a white Concord-­Carlisle student appeared in school wearing a T-shirt with a Confederate flag. The student was suspended, said Badalament, but it still rattles some students."

THIS is interesting. I had no idea that a student could be suspended for simply wearing a T-Shirt.

What if it had been a "Mitt Romney for President" T-Shirt? What if it had been a "Newt Gingrich for President" T-Shirt?

 Do we need another two hundred and fifty years to make true unity happen so we can finally unleash the strength of all our citizens to make a better nation? 

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(see below): This day, March 15, 1965 ....

On this day in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to urge the passage of legislation guaranteeing voting rights for all.

Using the phrase "we shall overcome," borrowed from African-American leaders struggling for equal rights, Johnson declared that "every American citizen must have an equal right to vote." Johnson reminded the nation that the Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War, gave all citizens the right to vote regardless of race or color. But states had defied the Constitution and erected barriers. Discrimination had taken the form of literacy, knowledge or character tests administered solely to African-Americans to keep them from registering to vote.

"Their cause must be our cause too," Johnson said. "Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome."

______________________________________________________________________________________

48 years and counting.   Everything looks good on paper and in books to white, middle-class suburbanites, but put them to the test on a practical level, and they are just as clueless now as ever.   Is there hope?  I'd like to think so.   

METCO is another example of flawed social engineering that harms the very kids it sought to help.  Because they do not have any connection to the extended community, these kids simply tolerated as part of that respective town's attempt to participate in some type of social good.   If CC residents really wanted to show their desire for tolerance and diversity, they would push for zoning changes to allow for high density, low cost housing.  

wow, the racism that oozes out of 'white' folks when a story like this is publicized.  like the reflexive 'well, you black kids sit together at lunch' which was the response to a description of the racism these kids face every day ...

shameful

METCO would do themselves a service by making student data available on their web site.  The program started in 1966 so there should be a  large body of data from which they can show things such as HS graduation rates, rates of college acceptances, college graduation rates, professions entered into, median income achievements and so on.  

What I find crazy & pathetic & ridiculous is the surprised responses that racism exists in Concord/Carlisle. You cannot be serious! It brings to mind Captain Renault in Casablanca exclaiming "I am shocked, SHOCKED to find that gambling is going on in here!".