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Comment by tac19 | Hacker News Reader

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The term isn't racist. Whitewash is a lime-based "paint" often used to conceal faults, and is literally the most direct a metaphor could be for glossing over a person's faults. Please educate yourself.

Agreed. But you're fighting a losing battle. "Calling a spade a spade" is similar. Has nothing to do with race, but can't use it in modern context.

Whitewashing literally means applying a wash (which is white, typically being lime or chalk) over a surface. The wash covers whatever was underneath with a uniform coating that hides what's underneath. It's like paint, but ancient.

Whitewashing has been a thing since before races (which are biologically meaningless) were called colors.

As a metaphor, it means exactly the same thing -- hiding the parts underneath with something that covers them.

Whitewashing is not sanitizing. Sanitizing something actually fixes it. A whitewashed surface is not implied to be sanitary. Lime is basic (high pH) so it also discourages (eg) mold growth, but it's not sanitary.

More generally, not every word that includes the substring "white" is a part of the conspiracy. Whichever conspiracy you are demonstratively opposing here.

Then everyone should embrace blacklisting, and master-slave system architecture. But they don't, and it's time to extend that sentiment all the way. We need to stamp out all hint of racism, lest we all be bigots.

What should we call the color of walls when they are painted white?

Condensed Rainbow.

> Condensed Rainbow

That's actually funny!

I like it much more than your implication that I am a bigot for whitewashing the walls of my basement last weekend.

But you avoided the point. Whitewashing is literally applying a wash which happens to be white.

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