Question: If you were placed in the main character's shoes, what would you do differently?
Answer: If I was placed in Aminata's shoes it is hard to say what I would, or could, have done differently. Laying here on my soft, double bed with electronics nearby, my skin seems startlingly white and it is hard to even imagine myself in her shoes, or the shoes of any slave. I can only hope and dream that I would have been half as strong and brave as Aminata Diallo, then pray that that is a theory that never gets tested. But, the question is what I would have done differently and I doubt that what I would have done would have benefited me any grand amount. I can speculate that I would not have the same determination to live as `Meena` did. I do not think that after having everything I know, own and love ripped away from me again and again, that I could have found the will to live. Thinking of the horrible treatment and brutal conditions that she, and so many others endured, I know that I would have crippled under the strain of it, unable to bear this wretched, inhumane way of life. Everyone likes to think that when placed in a dangerous situation that they would be able to conquer and to survive, even myself. In this situation I fear that I would have met the same fate as many others, my lifeless body would be added to a shallow grave; the deep, ruthless sea; or left to rot. I can only imagine the lives of those in the slave trade through the eyes of Aminata Diallo and know, if I was placed in her shoes, I would never survive.
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