Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (D) said Monday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin (R) and his supporters did not believe slavery and the Holocaust were real.
Stoney is the co-chair of the Terry McAuliffe (D) campaign.
Mitchell said, “How did Terry McAuliffe let Glenn Youngkin reframe the debate on education, including things like Toni Morrison’s book ‘Beloved’ becoming a flashpoint in this race with the issue of Critical Race Theory, which is not even taught in Virginia schools, but it’s become, according to most of the polls a big deal?”
Stoney said, “You are correct. We have seen Glenn Youngkin sort of divide parents all throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, pitting parents against parents, demonizing teachers, demonizing public education, and to me, that’s not the sort of governor I know that Virginians want. We want a governor who understands that taught about the seriousness and how barbaric slavery was featured in ‘Beloved’ is actually correct. In order for us to actually grow as a commonwealth, we have to understand that slavery was real, the Holocaust was real and unfortunately Glenn Youngkin and his supporters don’t believe so and believe that our children should not be taught the same as well.”
He added, “At the end of the day, when you run down people lie Toni Morrison, a Nobel Prize winner, a Pulitzer Prize winner as well, that’s the sort of divisiveness that the commonwealth cannot stand for. Glenn Youngkin is ending his campaign the same way he began his campaign, on Trump conspiracy theories, dividing families and parents and running down teachers thought the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
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