whiteout

noun

Etymology: Deverbal from white out.

1. A heavy snowstorm; a blizzard.
2. Any weather condition in which visibility and contrast are severely reduced by snow or sand causing the horizon and physical features of the terrain to disappear.

   “A whiteout can best be described as a paradoxical combination of being partially blind, but also being able to see illusions of things. It is like floundering in a sea of cotton; everything looks blurred and white.”

3. Correction fluid (from the brand name Wite-Out).
4. A sporting event where all in attendance are urged to wear white apparel.
5. The simulated erasure of a file, etc. on a read-only volume.
6. The suppression of a story by the media, analogously to deleting information with correction fluid.

   “Despite the media whiteout, we believe our weapon flashing had communicated the important political message that the nuclear mentality and the masculine mentality are intimately connected.”

   “The slightest reference to national security is accepted as excuse enough for a news whiteout.”

7. The silencing of voices and perspectives other than those of white people.

   “While it represented a symbolic break from the “whiteout” on the US presidency, it was also, obviously, the most racialized campaign in American history.”

   “Closer to home, I thought about how that same “whiteout” existed in U.S. scholarship on television production and viewership and their cultural flows.”