Whitewashing is the act of glossing over or covering up vices, crimes or scandals or exonerating by means of a perfunctory investigation or biased presentation of data."Whitewash", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2003 DVD Ultimate reference suite.

Etymology

The first known use of the term is from 1591 in England.

Whitewash Whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint is a type of paint made from slaked lime (calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2) or chalk calcium carbonate, (CaCO3), sometimes known as "whiting". Various other additives are sometimes used. ...

is a cheap white paint or coating of chalked

lime Lime commonly refers to: * Lime (fruit), a green citrus fruit * Lime (material), inorganic materials containing calcium, usually calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide * Lime (color), a color between yellow and green Lime may also refer to: Botany ...

that was used to quickly give a uniform clean appearance to a wide variety of surfaces, such as the interior of a barn.

Usage

In 1800, in the United States, the word was used in a political context, when a Philadelphia ''Aurora'' editorial said that "if you do not whitewash President Adams speedily, the Democrats, like swarms of flies, will bespatter him all over, and make you both as speckled as a dirty wall, and as black as the

devil A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...

." In the 20th century, many

dictatorship A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship a ...

s, authoritarian and

totalitarian Totalitarianism is a form of government and a political system that prohibits all opposition parties, outlaws individual and group opposition to the state and its claims, and exercises an extremely high if not complete degree of control and reg ...

states used whitewashing in order to glorify the results of war. For instance, during the Soviet invasion of

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

following the Prague Spring of 1968, the Press Group of Soviet Journalists released a collection of "facts, documents, press reports and eye-witness accounts." Western journalists promptly nicknamed it as "The White Book", both for its white cover and its attempts to whitewash the invasion by creating the impression that the

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist repub ...

countries had the right and duty to invade. In the study of reputation systems by means of algorithmic game theory, whitewashing refers to the abandonment of a tarnished identity and creation of a blank one, which is more widely known in internet slang as sockpuppeting. Some critics have accused Michelle Alexander's '' The New Jim Crow'' of being whitewashed due to the bias of its conceptual framework. It omits pertinent

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

people and history, as well as politically radical ideas in favor of a more conventional and mainstream perspective. According to the Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk director for the International Federation for Human Rights, Ilya Nuzov, Russia is trying to whitewash the country's repressive Stalinist past. On August 30, 2021, Russian Foreign Minister

Sergey Lavrov Sergey Viktorovich Lavrov (russian: Сергей Викторович Лавров, ; born 21 March 1950) is a Russian diplomat and politician who has served as the Foreign Minister of Russia since 2004. Lavrov served as the Permanent Represe ...

said that the "attacks" on the Soviet dictator

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretar ...

are part of attacks on Russia's past and the results of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Russian politician and former deputy of the State Duma said that Lavrov "made an attempt to whitewash Stalin, which clearly, during the period of repressive measures carried out by the authorities, showed the kinship of the authorities with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation ''–'' the same Stalin admirers." Russian literary critic and culturologist noted that "the whitewashing of domestic

ghouls A ghoul ( ar, غول, ') is a demon-like being or monstrous humanoid. The concept originated in pre-Islamic Arabian religion, associated with graveyards and the consumption of human flesh. Modern fiction often uses the term to label a cert ...

only indicates that the current rulers feel a spiritual kinship with them."

References

External links

The Commissar Vanishes
- the whitewashes by Stalin. {{Censorship Censorship Cover-ups

Etymology

Usage

See also

References

External links