<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A North Korean defector said she viewed the US as country of free thought and free speech \u2013 until she went to college here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yeonmi Park attended Columbia University and was immediately struck by what she viewed anti-Western sentiment in the classroom and a focus on political correctness that had her thinking \u201ceven North Korea isn\u2019t this nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI expected that I was paying this fortune, all this time and energy, to learn how to think. But they are forcing you to think the way they want you to think,\u201d Park told Fox News<\/a>. \u201cI realized, wow, this is insane. I thought America was different but I saw so many similarities to what I saw in North Korea that I started worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 27-year-old told The Post that she could\u2019t believe she would be asked to do \u201cthis much censoring of myself\u201d at a university in the United States. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI literally crossed the Gobi Desert to be free and I realized I\u2019m not free, America\u2019s not free,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yeonmi Park fled North Korea at age 13 in 2007, a voyage that took her and her family to China and South Korea before she went to school in New York in 2016. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Her professors gave students \u201ctrigger warnings,\u201d sharing the wording from readings in advance so people could opt out of reading or even sitting in class during discussions, Park told The Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGoing to Columbia, the first thing I learned was \u2018safe space,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery problem, they explained us, is because of white men.\u201d Some of the discussions of white privilege reminded her of the caste system in her native country, where people were categorized based on their ancestors, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one class, a teacher discussing Western Civilization asked students if they had a problem with the name of the topic \u2013 most students raised their hands, according to Park. Some, she said, mentioned issues with the \u201ccolonial\u201d slant of the discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And classes often began with professors asking students for their preferred pronouns, with the use of \u201cthey\u201d becoming scary as she feared being socially penalized for not being inclusive enough in her vocabulary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEnglish is my third language,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s very hard for me to say he and she sometimes, I misuse them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She told Fox that she also was chided for saying she enjoyed the writings of Jane Austen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI said \u2018I love those books.\u2019 I thought it was a good thing,\u201d Park told the network. \u201cThen she said, \u2018Did you know those writers had a colonial mindset? They were racists and bigots and are subconsciously brainwashing you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Park said North Korea students were constantly informed about the \u201cAmerican Bastard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI thought North Koreans were the only people who hated Americans, but turns out there are a lot of people hating this country in this country,\u201d she told The Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cancel culture and shouting down opposing voices is becoming an issue of self-censorship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Park, who chronicled her escape from North Korea and life in the repressive regime in the 2015 memoir \u201cIn Order to Live,\u201d said Americans seem willing to give their rights away not realizing they may never come back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cVoluntarily, these people are censoring each other, silencing each other, no force behind it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOther times (in history) there\u2019s a military coup d\u2019etat, like a force comes in taking your rights away and silencing you. But this country is choosing to be silenced, choosing to give their rights away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Park said she knows what a country could become with rights and discourse stripped away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNorth Korea was pretty insane,\u201d she said. \u201cLike the first thing my mom taught me was don\u2019t even whisper, the birds and mice could hear me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe told me the most dangerous thing that I had in my body was my tongue,\u201d Park said. \u201cSo I knew how dangerous it was to say wrong things in a country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Park, who grew up in the last Stalinist dictatorship<\/a> and witnessed people dying from starvation, said Americans are obsessed with oppression even though there is not much oppression they\u2019ve witnessed firsthand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis a completely nuts, this is unbelievable,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why people are collectively going crazy like this or together at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She said the situation in North Korea is one thing because the people don\u2019t have access to the internet and have limited exposure to the globe, but students here have much more access to information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Park said as a child she had thought dictator Kim Jong Un was \u201cstarving\u201d and overworked until she was in South Korea and was shown pictures that\u00a0showed how large he was in pictures compared to other people who looked thin and hungry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s what it does when you\u2019re brainwashed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn some ways they (in the US) are brainwashed. Even though there\u2019s evidence so clearly in front of their eyes they can\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Columbia University did not immediately respond to The Post\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Filed under<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" North Korean defector slams \u2018woke\u2019 US schools By Mark Moore and Mark Lungariello June 14, 2021 3:36pm Updated A North Korean defector said she viewed the US as country of free thought and free speech \u2013 until she went to … Continue reading ![\"Yeonmi](\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/north-korea-ivy-leauge-hp.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024\")
![\"Yeonmi](\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/north-korea-ivy-leauge-04.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/north-korea-ivy-leauge-06.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024\")
![\"Yeonmi](\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/north-korea-ivy-leauge-03.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024\")
![\"Monument](\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/06\/north-korea-ivy-leauge-02.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1024\")
Related Video<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Florida parents speak out against critical race theory<\/h2>\n\n\n\n