Gisele Fetterman, the wife of Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor and current Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman, went on a podcast recently and discussed several issues, including America’s supposedly “racist” swimming past and the supposed prevalence of “accommodations” in mainstream society.
On Thursday, Mrs. Fetterman joined the “iGen Politics” hosts and mentioned that she attempted to rectify some of America’s supposedly troubling history between “children of color” and pools.
She claimed that when her husband was first sworn in as lieutenant governor in 2019, she did not want to move her family into the mansion designated for the commonwealth’s second family but instead wanted to repurpose the mansion pool so that the public could use it.
“And while we did not want the mansion, that mansion came with a pool I wanted,” Fetterman told podcast co-hosts Jill Wine-Banks and Victor Shi.
Fetterman went on to explain exactly why she wanted the pool.
“[T]he dream,” she said, “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.”
And Fetterman then dove into the nature of some of those water wrongs.
“Historically, swimming in America is very racist,” Fetterman asserted, “and usually when you look at drowning statistics, it usually affects children of color, because of lack of access.”
Though her assertions may sound strange, they are not entirely off base. According to the CDC, the drowning rate for blacks is about 1.5 times higher overall than the rate for whites, and the rate disparity between black and white children is even higher. Black children ages 10-14 drown at 7.6 times the rate of white children, the CDC reported. However, the cause for these disparities remains unclear.
The lieutenant governor’s mansion did open the pool for public access for some time, though the mansion has since been sold.
During her podcast appearance, Mrs. Fetterman also attempted to minimize her husband’s possible cognitive impairment following a severe stroke and the significance of the closed-captioning he currently requires to participate in campaign events, including press interviews and the recent debate.
“Most people use accommodations on some level,” she said, “whether that’s how bright you keep your phone when you’re reading. These are all accommodations.”
The RealClearPolitics average for the race lists Fetterman with a 0.3% lead over Oz, though trend lines in the last few weeks have almost all moved in Oz’s favor.