North Korean defector who escaped sex slavery has powerful indictment for woke culture, liberals embracing socialism

A North Korean defector spoke out Monday about the encroaching dangers of progressivism on American college campuses, explaining woke culture is eroding what makes America a beacon for the world, especially for those people who are not free.

What is the background?

Yeonmi Park fled North Korea with her mother when she was just 13 years old. Park fled sex slavery and traveled across the vast and dangerous Gobi desert in search of freedom.

Park eventually settled in South Korea, as many defectors from the North do, but came to the United States in 2016 when she transferred to Columbia University in New York City.

What did she say?

Speaking with Fox News, Park said her experience studying at an elite American university had many similarities to her life in North Korea.

In fact, she said the problems began during orientation, when she was scolded for admitting that she enjoys reading classic English literature, such as works by Jane Austen.

"I said 'I love those books.' I thought it was a good thing. Then she said, 'Did you know those writers had a colonial mindset? They were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you,'" Park recalled.

Park explained that her education was designed to make students "resent" Western democracy and included blaming white men for civilization's problems. She also chided students for "playing with fire" — citing their love for socialism and communism — and mocked safe spaces and wanting to be identified by pronouns distinct from one's biological sex.

"It felt like the regression of civilization," Park said of her time at Columbia. "Even North Korea is not this nuts. ... North Korea was pretty crazy, but not this crazy."

"People choose to be brainwashed, and they deny it," she added of Americans. "Education almost makes you not able to think critically, even though in the name of critical thinking."

Park went on to lambaste Americans who think they are oppressed, especially those who pay half a million dollars to attend an Ivy League institution like Columbia University. "They are so bitter. They have zero, zero appreciation for what this country did, what the Constitution says to protect individual liberty. They have zero, zero appreciation. They are dying to give all their liberty away."

Park predicted that, if progressives get their way, America will head down the same path as North Korea.

"There's no rule of law, no morality, nothing is good or bad anymore, it's complete chaos," she said. "I guess that's what they want, to destroy every single thing and rebuild into a communist paradise."

Anything else?

Park later spoke with Fox News host Sean Hannity, where she explained why her experience is "heartbreaking" — and what it means for freedom.

"It's just heartbreaking. I literally sold as a sexual slave and I literally crossed the Gobi Desert to be free," Park said. "And now I thought I landed in a country where I can say what I believe and have my, you know, freedom to think. However, now I live in a country I have to constantly censor my speech because now in the name of safe place — Columbia told us what we cannot talk about."

"I am so concerned like, if America is not free, I think there's no place else is left that is free," she added. "And I think that's why it's really alarming to me."

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