In Response to bell hooks

I believe that in this article bell hooks has forgotten to considered many different aspects of what cultural studies is, how it is exercised, and for what purpose it serves. Understandably, there are many attempts at Cultural Studies that often undermine the objectives of the inquiry, leading often times to material that does in fact work to suppress, marginalize, and/or exploit its subjects. This is what anthropological fieldwork (otherwise known as ethnography) attempts to combat. A better understanding of the driving forces behind ethnography would, in my opinion, allow bell hooks to be slightly less oppositional to its practice.
For starters, contemporary anthropological theory has completely rejected the entire idea of ‘race’. Such a thing does not exist and only exists within our cultural classification systems and has no connection to biological differentiation. There is a descent pattern from the first of our species that can be traced along historical and geographical paths, allowing for human adaptations to different climates and environmental pressures (i.e. Africans living in sub-Saharan Africa have darker, tougher skin for sun protection while those humans who migrated north to the shady landscapes of Europe have lighter skin as they had more external protection from the sun). These types of adaptation have no biological determinacy- meaning there is no point in the human DNA record where ‘blacks’ can be officially fissured from ‘whites’ creating a new “race”. This however, does not help much with the matter at hand other than to say from a very basic beginning point, an ethnographer should not even examine his own ‘race’ as opposed to that of her or his subjects and this should be reflected in his or her data. (I say ‘should’ because obviously there are those who do not perform ethnography in what is considered the most ethically upright ways).
Secondly, ethnography has one main focus: the revision, maintenance, and continual compilation of the ethnographic record which is the entire body of work of all ethnographers since the onset of anthropological inquiry. As cultures are studied, their ethnographic data is included in this ethnographic record creating a database of cross-cultural information. From here, ethnologists take this record and perform their services of ethnology: the study of and articulation of cultural patterns, cultural variables, and cross-cultural significance. Here is the heart of ethnographic research. Anthropologists are searching for cultural data that makes us human, makes us like other humans, and will further our understanding and cooperation of every manifestation of human symbolic culture! Bell hooks is correct when she implies that it should be the people of her culture (not her black people but the actual people that make up her cultural background in which she is immersed) that should represent themselves through their own means as a culture. It is not the place of ethnography to attempt to outdo or nullify or replace her culture’s self representation, but rather it is the attempt of ethnography to study, attempt to understand, and classify this cultural representation within the context of an ethnographic record.
Finally, there are black ethnographers. There are white ethnographers. There are ethnographers of an array of diversity. Although it must be conceded that American Anthropology is dominated by white scholars, it is important to understand that the ethical and objective theory behind ethnography works to subvert and extinguish the threats of bias study aiming for the most objective view of humans and their culture around the world. In this manner, I believe that bell hooks would have much less trouble with the practice of ethnography. Let me know if you think I’ve over shot the benefits of ethnographic work.