To Obscure is Not to Erase

[unspeakablehorror]

There's something disquieting to me about a belief that removing depictions of violence in media will reduce violence in real life. It's a belief centered on thinking that not talking about something erases its existence, that we can rewrite reality simply by refusing to acknowledge it. It's a belief that silencing the victims of violence will erase the violence done to them, that looking away when the perpetrator commits that violence erases the violence they've done.

But violence thrives in silence and invisibility.