Definition Of Whitewashing History

Casting a white performer in a role based on a nonwhite person or fictional character.

Definition of whitewashing history. In 1800 in the united states the word was used in a political context when a philadelphia aurora. Hollywood has been whitewashing pun intended history since movies were invented merriam webster added the new sense of the word to its definition of whitewashing in 2019 explaining this new. The saddlebags had been brought from the stables and rested on a wooden bench near the washstand already patterned with chips of whitewash flaking from the walls. In a way that favors features or caters to white people.

To gloss over or cover up something such as a record of criminal behavior refused to whitewash the scandal in the years following the nuremberg trials there was an increasingly concerted effort to whitewash the record of the wehrmacht the armed forces of the third reich. It s fueling problems today. One of the national park service s first historic preservation projects the colonial national monument wrote people of color completely out of the story. 1 mass noun a solution of lime and water or of whiting size and water used for painting walls white.

Whitewashing noun defeat c informal a severe defeat especially one in which the defeated player or team does not score any points. These examples are from the cambridge english corpus and from sources on the web. Whitewash is a cheap white paint or coating of chalked lime that was used to quickly give a uniform clean appearance to a wide variety of surfaces for instance the entire interior of a barn. Portrait of george washington by charles willson.

The first known use of the term is from 1591 in england. A white liquid that is a mixture of lime or powdered chalk and water used for making walls or. Any opinions in the examples do not. This new sense of whitewashing refers to casting white actors as characters who are non white or of indeterminate race as in the casting of fiennes as jackson.

We re whitewashing the history of our founding. As defined by merriam webster to whitewash is to alter. A major book prize overlooks the racism and sexism of the past.