*The Republican nominee for governor of Virginia is championing a mother known locally for her efforts to remove Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Beloved from schools, saying it gave her teenage son nightmares.
A recent campaign ad for Glenn Youngkin features Laura Murphy saying, “As a parent, it’s tough to catch everything, so when my son showed me his reading assignment, my heart sunk. It was some of the most explicit material you can imagine. I met with lawmakers. They couldn’t believe what I was showing them.”
Watch below:
Murphy doesn’t name the literary source of her outrage, but locals know that she is speaking of Beloved, Morrison’s beautifully-disturbing 1987 novel about a post-Civil War family of former slaves whose Cincinnati home is haunted by a malevolent spirit. The book was adapted into a film produced by and starring Oprah Winfrey in 1998.
In Youngkin’s ad, Murphy complains that his Democratic challenger, and Virginia’s previous governor, Terry McAuliffe, allegedly didn’t want parents to have a say in their children’s education. Her crusade against Beloved being taught in an Advanced Placement (AP) English class began in 2012, when she campaigned for future AP English classes to provide separate reading options if a chosen book — chosen specifically for advanced students — has sexually explicit content.
The school board voted against her request. Twitter, meanwhile, was quite amused by her fragility. Frankly, Morrison’s story about slavery’s psychological impact on the enslaved is the stuff of nightmares.
This ad is going to backfire. He thought he could sneak in “distraught white mother” without having anyone dig into the back story.
“Tried to ban pulitzer prize winning novel by beloved black author from her son’s Senior AP English class” is a gift to McAuliffe. https://t.co/b12yud5PDL
— What Biden Has Done (@What46HasDone) October 26, 2021
If this mom doesn’t want her kids getting exposed to college-level readings like Toni Morrison’s Beloved, then she shouldn’t enroll them in AP courses which have college-level readings.
Maybe seal them in some kind of special bubble where Pulitzer Prize winners won’t hurt them?
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) October 25, 2021
It’s kind of dismal that “my kid gets scared reading Toni Morrison” is the basis for a political platform rather than a source of embarrassment. https://t.co/6JugeqIfHe
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) October 26, 2021
Wait … is this Concerned Mother’s son now a 27-year-old lawyer for the National Republican Congressional Committee?
Has he overcome his fear of Toni Morrison? pic.twitter.com/jKNkRIx9CJ
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) October 25, 2021
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