Racial/Cultural Lens Entry 1

Critical lenses are a means for people to look at a text with different perspectives and focus on a certain aspect of a text. The race and cultural background lens allows readers to focus on how different races or cultures are viewed, treated, or the thoughts that those races or cultures have about others and themselves. I chose to read through Huckleberry Finn and Song of Solomon in this lens because they are two books with evident instances of discrimination towards different races or cultures. I also chose to focus on this lens because I am interested to see how different people were treated in that time period and how the characters participate, or don’t, with how they are expected to towards people of different race or culture. 
Looking into this lens and how different people were treated in the past is similar to looking through the historical lens, which focuses on the time periods of the book’s setting and the time period in which the author was writing, in order to see how they were influenced to write what and how they did. However, I am really interested to see how these different cultures were treated in the time period that the books took place in and also how they were treated when the authors were writing these books because they will give more insight for why they were treated this way. Overall, I am excited to read through these books to learn more about how different races and cultures were treated in these times and I hope to see how the different characters react or participate to the way they are expected to treat or view people of different cultures or backgrounds.