The wife of Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman claims “swimming in America is very racist” – saying the couple turned the pool at the lieutenant governor’s mansion they turned …
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Uncle Festerman’s illegal alien wife claims ‘swimming in America is very racist’
By
Yaron Steinbuch
October 28, 2022 9:17am
Updated
The wife of Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman claimed “swimming in America is very racist” — as she likened her husband’s use of closed captioning to turning up the brightness on a smartphone.
“Historically, swimming in America is very racist, and usually when you look at drowning statistics, it usually affects children of color, because of lack of access,” Gisele Fetterman said on the iGen politics podcast on Thursday.
Gisele made the comments while discussing how she and her husband, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, had decided not to move into the state-owned mansion in Harrisburg but made the pool accessible to the public.
Gisele Fetterman, wife of Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman, said in a podcast that “swimming in America is very racist.”AP
The couple live in a converted loft in Braddock, which Fetterman’s Republican challenger Dr. Mehmet Oz’s campaign has claimed
he bought for $1.
“And while we did not want the mansion, that mansion came with a pool I wanted,” Gisele told Jill Wine-Banks and Victor Shi on the show.
“And the dream was to make this a public pool and turn it into the people’s pool and ensure that young people across Pennsylvania could learn how to swim and water safety and kind of work to right some of the wrongs,” she added.
Gislele Fetterman said in the iGen politics podcast that she and her husband made the pool at the lieutenant governor’s mansion public “to right some of the wrongs.”YouTube / Politicon
According to the lieutenant governor website, the official mansion has been sold since its pool was opened to the public for the first time in the summer of 2019.
“Second Lady Gisele Fetterman oversaw a program to teach water safety and offer novel exposure to swimming,”
it says. It was not immediately clear if the pool is still open.
Public pools were often segregated during the Jim Crow era, when blacks were generally barred from using the facilities when they were used as cooling centers.
The podcast interview was conducted after Democrat John Fetterman’s troubling performance against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz in the Senate race.Getty Images
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more blacks tend to drown than whites.
“Drowning death rates for Black people are 1.5 times higher than the rates for White people. Disparities are highest among Black children ages 5-9 (rates 2.6 times higher) and ages 10-14 (rates 3.6 times higher),”
the CDC says on its website.
“In swimming pools, Black children ages 10-14 years drown at rates 7.6 times higher than White children,” the agency adds.
Protesters demonstrating in the swimming pool of the Monson Motor Lodge in Saint Augustine, Florida, in 1964 scream as motel manager James Brock dumps “muriatic acid” into the water.Bettmann Archive
“Black children and youth are more likely to drown in public pools, and white children and youth are more likely to drown in residential pools.”
The podcast interview was conducted after Fetterman’s troubling
performance in the race’s lone debate against Oz before the Nov. 8 Senate election in Pennsylvania.
Public pools were often segregated during the Jim Crow era.ASSOCIATED PRESS
Black demonstrators attempting to swim at a St. Augustine Beach were met with violence.Bettmann Archive
Fetterman’s lingering “auditory processing issues” following his May stroke were apparent during the showdown, where despite debating with the aid of two 70-inch TV monitors equipped with closed captioning — spelling out the moderators’ questions, and Oz’s responses — it was very unclear what the Keystone State’s lieutenant governor was
trying to say at times.
In the podcast, Gisele defended her husband’s use of closed captioning, arguing that it is akin to adjusting the brightness on your smartphone.
“Most people use accommodations on some level, whether that’s how bright you keep your phone when you’re reading. These are all accommodations,” she said.
Protesters demonstrate in front of the Valley Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., in response to allegations that the swim club blocked a group of minority children from joining weekly swims at the pool, Thursday, July 9, 2009.AP
“Maybe closed captioning is a new thing to them but I’ve been using closed captioning my whole life, I learned how to speak English watching ‘Mister Rogers’ and reading closed captions,” the second lady added.
Last week,
President Biden also raised eyebrows when he said that Gisele would be a “great lady in the Senate” — appearing to imply that her husband would be unable to serve due to his poor health.
“John, thank you very much for running, I really do appreciate it,” Biden said at an event in Pittsburgh. “And Gisele, you’re going to be a great, great lady in the Senate.”