(cont'd from yesterday's post)
After the family got across a frozen river into China, the first thing Yeonmi saw was her mother being raped. She herself, at 13 years old, was also raped but redeemed her family by becoming the trafficker's mistress. Then they crossed the freezing Gobi desert to escape into South Korea.
But America was their goal and, after all the terrible suffering, they made it. No longer slaves, they had food and they could even wear jeans if they liked.
Yeonmi was also hungry for knowledge and for truth after getting so little of that in her childhood. She wound up going to Columbia University . . and got confused. She loved learning about her place in history. But the resentment, bitterness, accusations of oppression at Columbia disturbed her.
It's not right, she says, to be punished for something you had no hand in. Blacks were shamed and punished for their race a hundred years ago, and now the message is that whites must be shamed and punished for their race today. That's racism and it is still just as wrong.
She's determined to both know and speak the truth on a number of topics. She's written a book:
No comments:
Post a Comment