Posted on 10/26/2021 3:16:41 AM PDT by RandFan
Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin released a new ad on Monday, featuring a mother who pushed to have the 1987 novel "Beloved" banned from her son's English curriculum in Fairfax County, Va. roughly eight years ago.
Laura Murphy is the centerpiece of the 60-second ad, titled "McAuliffe Shut Us Out," which details her push to require schools to tell parents if books in their child's curriculum contained explicit content and allow students to opt-out of reading the material. Murphy said she met with lawmakers, who agreed with her on the issue.
"It was bipartisan. It gave parents a say, the option to choose an alternative for my children," Murphy said. "But then Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed it twice. He doesn't think parents should have a say. He said that. He shut us out."
Murphy, whose son Blake was a high school senior at the time, did not detail that the content in question was the Toni Morrison novel, which tells the story of former slaves after the Civil War and depicts some of the horrors of slavery in graphic detail. However, a resurfaced Washington Post article from 2013, featured an interview with Murphy and her son.
Blake Murphy told the publication that the book was "disgusting" and "hard for him to handle," adding that he eventually gave up on it.
Murphy said she did not want the book banned completely, rather until new policies that addressed explicit material for students were put in place.
“I’m not some crazy book burner,” Murphy said. “I have great respect and admiration for our Fairfax County educators. The school system is second to none. But I disagree with the administration at a policy level.”
Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe has argued that the legislation would have led to censorship and the banning of books. He released a statement on Monday, accusing Youngkin of "book banning and silencing esteemed Black authors is a racist dog whistle."
“I have long said that Glenn Youngkin is using our schools and children as political pawns to advance his and Trump’s dangerous, out-of-touch and bigoted agenda here in Virginia. Doing so is disturbing, disgusting and disqualifying," McAuliffe said. "Do not be deceived, this is yet another example of Glenn Youngkin’s full embrace of Donald Trump, and Virginians will reject both Youngkin and Trump at the polls next week.”
Youngkin's campaign fired back, citing 18 Virginia Democratic lawmakers who supported the legislation that McAuliffe vetoed.
"The bipartisan bills McAuliffe vetoed would simply have notified parents of sexually explicit reading assignments and given them the choice of having their own child receive an alternative," Youngkin's campaign said. "McAuliffe continues to confirm every day that he wants to silence parents because he doesn’t believe they should have a say in their child’s education."
The latest back-and-forth comes as Youngkin and his GOP allies have sought to make education and parents' rights issues a major piece of their campaign message one week out from Election Day.
Fake News buried the truth in the copy. The headline is a LIE.
“Murphy said she did not want the book banned completely, rather until new policies that addressed explicit material for students were put in place.
“I’m not some crazy book burner,” Murphy said. “I have great respect and admiration for our Fairfax County educators. The school system is second to none. But I disagree with the administration at a policy level.””
“Beloved,” if I recall correctly, had a lesbian theme and was pretty explicit.
I don’t see why they got rid of opt-outs.
There was also mandatory parental permission. I grew up in NYC and in junior high school and even high school, they assigned some books that required that you get your parents’ permission to read. (I remember this for “Andersonville,” in 8/9 grade.). If they didn’t permit it, you couldn’t read it for class.
The schools today are really panicked by any threat to their total control of the children. That’s because they know perfectly well what they’re doing and what their objective is, and it’s not reading and writing and ‘rithmetic.
Parents can ask for the reading lists before the start of the school year, but most never bother because its been the same old song - mostly from the working mommies - ‘teachers know best’.
18 years ago, our school also assigned a Toni Morrison novel for senior year. I told the head of the dept that my son was not going to read the book....and we agreed on a suitable substitute. Only one other student in a class of 25 was pulled out.
If parents NEVER complain, if they ALWAYS go along, the boards & teachers give themselves power that they were NEVER entitled to.
Bttt
Nope.
It seems convoluted at the start. Then it become racial when you bring in Morrison’s name.
It’s a nice way to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
Does anyone know if the GOP is actually spending on the Governor’s race in VA?
Not wanting impressionable children exposed to explicit materials in schools without their parents' knowledge or permission is a "dangerous, out-of-touch and bigoted agenda" according to McAuliffe and the Democrats.
This is why we need to fight to be elected to the school board. If we run, we can fight the teachers unions, the indoctrinating of our kids and make sure the kids are getting a quality education. I was talking to a parent about her child school and she said, when I told her that she needs to run for school board, she said that she doesn’t have time. I told her yes, it is her kid who is affected. No one has time to run, only the leftists... and you see what they are doing....
What part - letting parents have a say, or this particular item?
McAuliffe is campaigning on “Keep Parents out of Classrooms”
The ad says nothing about “Beloved.” It talks about explicit material.
Article is a dog whistle to black female voters in Virginia, to make them angry at this white Karen for daring to hate on St. Toni.
The left wing rag, The Hill, spews its pathetic left wing propaganda.
When I was in high school in the mid-70's, we always had a list of 4 or 5 books to choose from. We chose which one we wanted and some students chose something else. This is how I avoided having to read Silas Marner.
Ugh.....Silas Mariner is right up there with Beowolf and the other boring boring epics.
Beowulf boring ??? Such disrespect for the academic work of JRR Tolkien ! He as an Anglo-Saxon scholar rescued Beowulf from the dustbin of history and got it declared the foundation stone of all English literature. That’s why you read it in HS. Without Beowulf there would be no Lord of the Rings ! The names, the imagery, the heroes, villains and story line are deeply indebted to Tolkien’s Anglo-Saxon scholarship and to the Beowulf story.
Now I get it; you are totally correct.
I actually get it now. Article is trying to make it a racial issue, not the campaign.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.