Yeonmi Park, a North Korean defector, said Friday her experiences since coming to the U.S. as a college student have left her questioning some of what she was told about America.
Park grew up in North Korea, starving and being told the nation’s leaders could read her mind. Her parents were arrested when she was nine, leaving her and her 11-year-old sister to fend for themselves.
She escaped to China at 13, only to be sold into sex slavery for two years. At 15, she crossed the frozen Gobi Desert by foot before being rescued by missionaries in South Korea.
But now an American citizen and human rights activist, she said her experience being mugged in Chicago was “crazier than North Korea.”
On “The Brian Kilmeade Show” Friday, Park said she was attacked by several Black women who punched her and took her wallet while she was with her 2-year-old child.
She said the incident happened in the summer of 2020, when Black Lives Matter protests were at their height.
Muggings, Park said, can happen to anyone. But in her case, bystanders refused to help.
“Not only that, they were screaming at me and calling me a racist because I was trying to call the cops on these criminals,” Park told host Brian Kilmeade.
“I literally thought this is crazier than North Korea,” she said. “Even in North Korea, if there’s a victim getting robbed, we are going to help them.”
Park has spoken extensively about the far-left, anti-American ideologies she encountered while going to school at Columbia University, comparing it to her home country where the regime forces people “to think the way they want you to think.”
NORTH KOREAN DEFECTOR SHOCKED AT WHAT SHE LEARNED AT ‘WOKE’ IVY LEAGUE SCHOOL: ‘BRAINWASHING’
She said Asians are often thought of as privileged, and she’s been called “White-passing” which she said makes her “guilty.”
“I have almost White privilege, and therefore I cannot be a victim, even though I was being victimized by these Black women punching me and taking my wallet away,” she explained.
“I don’t deserve any compassion and justice in their mind because of my skin color.”
Park said one of her attackers was eventually arrested and sent to jail on other charges. Park, however, feared the publicity of her story could push the attacker to seek revenge.
She has since moved back to New York.
“It was unbelievable,” she said.