A famous novel about slavery is the focus of controversy in the US local elections
Cover of the controversial novel Beloved.
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Beloved's poignant novel about slavery, by African-American Toni Morrison, became the subject of controversy over its teaching this week, in the midst of the campaign to elect the new governor of Virginia in the eastern United States.
In this election, which constitutes a crucial test for President Joe Biden, the Republican candidate, Glenn Yangkin, used the housewife, Laura Murphy, in a recent advertisement for his campaign. The violence in this story caused her son's nightmares.
This famous novel in American literature, published in 1987 and won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, is based on the true story of a former enslaved woman who decides to kill her child to spare him the fate of slavery.
Laura Murphy's struggle led to a Republican bill that would allow parents to prohibit teaching their children books containing sexually explicit content.
In Yangkin's taped campaign ad, without naming the book that served as the starting point, Murphy says the bill, which has been voted on twice by the Republican-majority Virginia General Assembly, has been challenged each time by Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the state's governor from 2014 to 2018. The candidate for a new term.
"The law gives voice to parents and provides them with an alternative for their children," said Laura Murphy, wondering if "Terry McAuliffe does not think it is important for parents to have a say" in the education that children receive.
The Democratic candidate backed by party leaders such as Joe Biden and Barack Obama responded in an ad, recalling that Toni Morrison was the first black American to win the 1993 Nobel Prize for Literature.
In a tweet accompanying the announcement, McAuliffe accused his opponent of "injecting Donald Trump's politics of hate and dissent" into school classrooms.
"Glen Yangkin is encouraging the banning of a book by one of America's most famous black writers," he said at a campaign rally.
The elections, which will be held in Virginia, tomorrow, will pave the way for the mid-term legislative elections next year, and the results of the candidates are very close, according to the polls, a few days before the elections.
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