Pennsylvania second lady faces racist insults
Native of Brazil accosted on visit to grocery store
FOREST HILLS, Pa. – A visit to a local grocery store turned ugly Sunday when Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the wife of Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, said she was subjected to xenophobic and racist insults in a confrontation she captured briefly on video and posted to Twitter.
Gisele Fetterman, a formerly undocumented immigrant from Brazil who became an American citizen in 2009, said she went to an Aldi’s near her home to buy kiwis.
While standing in line to check out, Fetterman said she was accosted by a woman who said, “There’s that (nword) that Fetterman married” and called the state's second lady a thief who did not belong here.
Fetterman, 38, said she was unaccompanied by her security team because the family was in on a rainy Sunday night and she was just darting out “for what I thought would be a fiveminute trip to the grocery store.”
John Fetterman is the former mayor of Braddock, and the couple still live there with their three children.
On Monday, Fetterman told the USA TODAY Network that the woman would hurl insults, walk away and then return to continue the verbal barrage. A woman standing behind her asked if she was alone and warned her to not walk to her
car alone, Fetterman said.
Fetterman was too upset to notify employees, she said. “I just wanted to get out of there and get home,” she said.
Fetterman said she paid for her kiwis and looked for the woman, but did not see her. As she was backing her car out of her parking space, Fetterman said the woman came out of the store emptyhanded and headed for her car.
Shaking and crying, Fetterman said she reached for her phone, but only managed to capture the last few seconds in which the woman pulls down her mask and says, “You’re a (n-word).”
Since Sunday’s incident, Fetterman said she has heard from other residents
who reported similar racist incidents with the woman, some involving children.
“This behavior and this hatred is taught,” Fetterman posted on Twitter on Sunday. “If you know her, if she is our neighbor or relative, please, please teach her love instead.”
Fetterman reiterated those feelings on Monday, saying that she worries the woman could be teaching her grandchildren how to hate others.
“She does not reflect the majority and there’s comfort in that,” Fetterman said. “I only love my country more. It just makes me want to fight more for my country.”
Fetterman said her state police security team is investigating the incident.