A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea

by Masaji Ishikawa

You don’t choose to be born. You just are. And your birth is your destiny, some say. I say the hell with that. And I should know. I was born not just once but five times. And five times I learned the same lesson. Sometimes in life, you have to grab your so-called destiny by the throat and wring its neck.

This hit me hard, and continues to hit me hard when I think about it. What makes my life worth more than the lives of those elsewhere? Nothing. I don't deserve this life more, I just got lucky. I was incredibly lucky to be born white and in America. Luckier still that I married into the middle class. If I had been born in Syria, North Korea, Sudan, or anywhere else and tragedy struck I'd be a small blip at the bottom of CNN and nothing more to the majority of America. When an American grabs life by the neck and takes control of their destiny they're seen as strong, they know what they want, they take charge. When it's a Muslim fleeing persecution or a Mexican desperately trying to feed his family, they're lazy and scary and violent and need to go back where they belong. It's so, so, sad.