Many of you may or may not have heard of Ian Connor, or just know him as the kid you see a lot amongst Kanye, A$ap Rocky and many other A-list rappers.
Recently, there has been a new title associated with him: rapist.
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Malika Anderson, an Emory University student set to graduate in 2016, has accused model and visionary Ian Connor of raping her. She published a WordPress article on April 8 entitled, “Ian Connor is a Rapist, and I Know First Hand." According to Anderson, Connor sexually assaulted her in October 2014. Anderson makes it a point to note that she has only come forward years later because the Atlanta Police Department investigation has finally ended.
Connor is the one that people claim started all of the current hype beast trends, whereas Anderson is just your average college student. How did they even meet?
Believe it or not, Twitter.
According to Malika, within Oct. 20, 2014, she tweeted "Who is Ian Connor?" like many of other people have. Within her post she writes that Ian proceeded to follow her and watched and waited a few months before contacting her via direct messaging on twitter. She says that Connor and her hung out a number of two times, and on the third time hanging out was when he raped her.
According to Malika, he kept begging her to have oral sex. She eventually gave in and verbally agreed to only that. He made her lay on her stomach and proceeded to do just that. She says, "about two minutes later I felt his bare [----] thrust inside of me. I was shocked and didn’t know what to do and then I pushed him off of me."
Like majority of other cases, no charges were brought against Connor due to a lack of physical evidence. According to Malika, Connor was called for questioning by the Atlanta Police Department but “wasn't in the state at the time and couldn't say when he would be back.”
What? Someone who has just been accused of raping someone gets to call the shots with law enforcement?! I also find it important to note that a new law was passed in Georgia in February 2016 after it was found that the state had a backlog of over 1,000 untested rape kits. The law made the testing of kits a priority for authorities. With it being necessary to pass a law like this, I believe it shows that these investigations clearly need to be handled within a timely manner.
Nevertheless, once again we see that clear insensitivity from law enforcement towards rape victims. The way how rape cases and victims are treated makes it seem as if people don't even believe that rape is real.
I know, "innocent until proven guilty," but how is anyone ever going to be guilty if care and work is not put into the case?
If everything Malika has said is true, I believe Connor still genuinely does not think that he raped her and that is exactly the problem.
Most young men are not taught the reality about sex, what consensual sex is and do not have a definition of rape that goes beyond forcefully dragging a person into a room or drugging them.
If another person, says no and you proceed to do exactly what they have just repetitively asked you not to do that is rape and there is no way around it.
“Society doesn’t fully understand that rape is not about sex. It’s actually about power and control as a result of hyper masculinity. Bystander intervention is about intervening with people and peers that you know personally. These aren’t evil people. Intervention is all about talking about social and cultural change when people are young.”
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