When Yeonmi Park speaks about wokeness in America, she is not talking about kindness or respect, but about a culture she believes punishes the wrong opinion. Park grew up in North Korea, where saying the wrong thing could endanger a person’s family, and she argues that she now sees echoes of that fear in the United States: people afraid to speak plainly at work or at school, students who stay silent in class, and public figures who apologise for views that were ordinary a few years earlier.
In this interview, Park explains why she finds that atmosphere so troubling. She contrasts the freedom she hoped to find in America with the pressure to use approved language, accept approved ideas, and avoid offending powerful groups. Her criticism is not aimed at any one policy, but at a wider habit of policing speech and thought. Listeners may agree or disagree with her comparison, but her story asks a serious question: what happens to a free society when people no longer feel free to say what they think?