By Sid Holmes

Keith Russell

Smooth brown skin, mustache, closely cropped hair and outfitted from head to toe in black boots, jeans, shirt and leather jacket, Keith Russell could be any ordinary urban African American male.

But just as Russell’s appearance belies his age – he looks 15 years younger – it also offers no clue to his occupation, which is worthy of stumping even the savviest panelist on the old game show ‘What’s My Line?’

As an ornithologist (a “birder” in the parlance of the profession) his stock and trade are our feathered friends that most of us barely notice, save for a brief listen to a chirp, a song or a passing glance as they fly to and fro.

The oldest of seven siblings, two boys and five girls, Russell has been enamored of birds for as long as he can remember while growing up in Philadelphia. But the spark leading him to his current a job as Science and Outreach coordinator for Audubon Pennsylvania was struck by a third grade book report. “All I remember is going to the library and looking at bird books,” he smiles.

His parents – father, a University of Pennsylvania graduate and USDA research chemist, and a Temple-grad, stay-at-home mother – did their best to encourage their son, supplying Russell with a pair of Sears binoculars, buying him watercolors to paint his obsession, and occasionally ferrying him to locations where he could observe birds in their various habitats.

“Education was extremely important to my parents,” Russell says, rattling off a list of activities punctuating his childhood, including art lessons and music school. “They supplemented what I learned in school with as much education as they could.”

By the sixth grade Russell was a regular visitor at the Academy of Natural Sciences (the nation’s oldest natural history museum), finding a mentor in a member of the exhibits department, and selling his own paintings of birds to his Mt. Airy neighbors.

A man living literally around the corner from his home, “one of the most well known and well-respected birders in Philadelphia,” took Russell on field trips throughout the region and to meetings of the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club (DVOC), America’s oldest organization for birders and bird enthusiasts.

“I burned up his phone,” Russell says, recalling his neighbor’s patience, and how constant reinforcement was instrumental in guiding him towards his career path. “Mentors and parental support, that translates no matter who you are; you connect with a community and that was everything to me.”

At 17, Russell joined the DVOC, the first black member of an organization that at the time had a no-admittance policy for women. Upon high school graduation and fueled by scholarships, he entered Cornell University based on the “tremendous reputation” of its Lab of Ornithology, pursuing a degree in biology and setting the stage for a master’s degree in zoology from Clemson University.

Returning to Philadelphia, for ten years and based on a tip from his museum mentor who suggested that he apply for the position, Russell worked as Collection Manager for Exhibits at the Academy of Natural Sciences, then joined the ornithology department as Assistant Editor for ‘The Birds of North America,’ a publication compiling modern life history information for over 700 species of North American birds.

Russell’s past 11 years have involved conservation activities with the National Audubon Society, first as a biologist in its science office for the Important Bird Area Program and, since 2006, in his current Philadelphia-based position, spreading the gospel of habitat preservation and restoration, in collaboration with other organizations like the city’s zoo.

Most recently he’s been involved in a research project about bird collisions with buildings. (They are fooled by reflections in windows.) For three years Russell has monitored a three-and-a-half square block area of Center City dominated by skyscrapers, documenting numerical and species data on the hundreds of birds killed annually during the spring and fall migration periods.

“If you’re a birder, you’re naturally interested in conservation,” Russell points out, adding that his fellow bird lovers share a simple rationale for devoting their lives to studying their subjects. “There’s something about them that they find fascinating. Birds are beautiful creatures.”

Being engaged in a profession where African Americans are few and far between is nothing new to Russell. “You get used to it, like it’s no big deal,” he says, noting that for high school he and his siblings all attended the private Germantown Friends School, and are grads of Brown, Penn, Princeton, etc. They enjoy careers in teaching, marketing, banking and more. “I didn’t find that funny,” he says of his life’s journey. “My parents had us all understand that all people are equal and there are no ‘special’ children.”

He gives all the credit for his and his siblings’ success to his parents who did not constrain their interests – even if they did not understand their children’s passions. “They allowed each of us to be who we were. They are the most important reason why I am able to do this today,” he says, adding that their experience holds an example for today’s parents, whose children have an array of career choices they can imagine and pursue – if they prepare themselves.

“We as black folks need to have a broader range of interests if each one of us is going to find a niche in life that allows us to utilize and be appreciated for the unique talents we all possess as individuals. Not everybody can rap, play basketball or cut hair.”

Original Post by Deidre Wengen from www.phillyburbs.com

Link: http://mobi.phillyburbs.com/phillyburbs/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=pBTrIBr3&full=true#display

“Mayor Michael Nutter and the City of Philadelphia are embracing poetry as a powerful means of communication and artistic expression by creating a citywide position for poet laureate.

And West Philadelphia resident Sonia Sanchez will be the first artist named to the post.

According to this article from the Associated Press, the activist and poet was appointed to the newly created position Thursday. Mayor Nutter called Sanchez “the longtime conscience of the city.”

The 77-year-old poet has had a long career and played a very active part in the Civil Rights Movement and the Black Arts Movement. She has held teaching positions at eight universities and she is currently the poet in residence at Temple University.

At the induction ceremony, Mayor Nutter said, “Poetry is an extraordinary and powerful art form. Ms. Sanchez exemplifies the role a poet can play in helping to define a city and helping its citizens discover beauty.”

Some of the roles of the poet laureate will include mentoring a youth poet laureate and appearing at spoken word and poetry events as well as other public appearances at City Hall and the Free Library of Philadelphia.

It is exciting that Philadelphia is recognizing the importance of poetry and the impact it can have on citizens. We’re thrilled that Sonia Sanchez has been named to the post and excited to see what this new position does for the city.”

-Deidre Wengen, www.phillyburbs.com

NYTimes (Caramanica)

The best posts on the style blog Street Etiquette find its principals, Travis Gumbs and Joshua Kissi, in motion. As opposed to the fascistically frozen street-style snaps of The Sartorialist and others, these pictures are styled and plotted fictions but also affecting ones, depicting a pair of young black men taking ownership not just of the body and what goes on it, but also of the environment it moves in. No one ever smiles on Street Etiquette: there’s business to attend to.

Read more here

“The voice of the intelligence…is drowned out by the roar of fear.
It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice
of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all,
it is silenced by ignorance.”
–Dr. Karl Menninger

Dear BME Brother,

Lend Your VOICES to Our Discussion of “The Scottsboro Boys”

The Brothers’ Network’s partnership with the Philadelphia Theatre
Company begins its fifth year with a discussion of a singular
theatrical and historical event – a musical that revisits one of the
most notorious miscarriages of justice in American history.

The musical is “The Scottsboro Boys,” the last work by Broadway
legends John Kander and Fred Ebb. The duo chose a 19th-century musical
form associated with negative stereotypes of blacks – the minstrel
show – to highlight the issues that made the Scottsboro Boys trial an
international outrage.

We chose to partner with PTC on the launch of its “Voices” series of
community discussions because “The Scottsboro Boys” uniquely addresses
issues of race, justice, crime and stereotyping in an
attention-grabbing manner.

Our discussion on Sunday, Jan. 8, will be led by two Ph.D. candidates
in Temple University’s African American Studies program, Andrew D.
Brown and Brandon Stanford. Our discussion will focus on a number of
issues, including:

• the dynamics that lead some disenfranchised people to use other, more
• disenfranchised people as a means of gaining status and security,
• how stereotypes of blacks have more power than stereotypes of whites,
• how African Americans absorb portrayals of their own history and why,
• comedic treatments of it are better received than dramatic ones

The Brothers’ Network is sponsoring this FREE discussion in order to
advance the dialogue on racial justice issues and broaden and deepen
our engagement with history and ideas that can be used to better
understand the American racial dynamic.
The discussion will take place at 1 p.m. on Sunday. Jan. 8, at the
Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 South Broad Street, Philadelphia. PLEASE
RSVP at comments@thebrothersnetwork.org
Then join us on February 10. 2012 for our special evening of theater,
with a performance of “The Scottsboro Boys” and a post-performance
discussion featuring members of the cast.

Wall Street Journal (James Campbell)

Harlem in the autumn of 1924 offered a “foretaste of paradise,” according to the novelist Arna Bontemps. He was recalling the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance and was perhaps a little dazzled in retrospect—Bontemps was writing in 1965—by his memories of “strings of fairy lights” illuminating the uptown “broad avenues” at dusk.

A gloomier perspective is found in the writings of James Baldwin, born in Harlem Hospital in August 1924. His novel “Go Tell It on the Mountain” (1953) and his memoir, “The Fire Next Time” (1963), both evoke a Harlem childhood dominated by poverty, fear, brutality, with the dim torch of salvation locked in a storefront church. Baldwin scarcely mentions the renaissance or its principals in all his writings—despite the remarkable coincidence of his having attended schools where two mainstays of any account of the Harlem Renaissance were teachers: the poet Countee Cullen and the novelist Jessie Redmon Fauset.

Read entire article here

NYTIMES: (Nelson George)

EARLY in Dee Rees’s film “Pariah” it journeys into a Brooklyn strip club where scantily clad young black women gyrate to a sexy, foul-mouthed rap song. Lascivious customers leer, toss money and revel in their own unbridled lust. It is a scene that could have been in any of “the hood movies” that once proliferated or even a Tyler Perry melodrama in which Christian values would be affirmed after this bit of titillation.

But in “Pariah” the gaze of desire doesn’t emanate from predatory males but A.G.’s, that is aggressive lesbians, who, in a safe space where they enjoy the fellowship of peers, can be true to themselves.

Read the article here

Please, share your opinion of this film if you’ve seen it!

Whyy Radio:

Nearly one in two Americans is poor or low-income, a record number according to the latest census numbers. With unemployment high and social services eroding with budgetary constraints, how can people living in poverty be helped? Social scientists are just beginning to unravel the complicated psychological picture of poverty and are learning that it takes an enormous toll on the mind. Princeton professor ELDAR SHAFIR studies the psychology of poverty. He says that poverty compromises an individual’s judgment, decision-making, even their IQ when stressed.  Shafir is our guest this hour and talks to Marty about the conspiring factors that make escape from poverty so difficult.

The Psychology of Poverty

Via NPR

“The Roots Weave a Tale of Crime and Karma”

The Roots might be best known today as the house band on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. But the group has been making boundary-pushing hip-hop for more than two decades, and has just released its latest album, undun.

Read more and listen here

From Technicallyphilly.com:

When TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington told CNN’s Soledad O’Brien ‘I don’t know a single black entrepreneur,’ the snippet of the fourth installment O’Brien’s “Black in America” documentary set off a firestorm of debate about race in the cradle of America’s tech community, Silicon Valley.

In Philadelphia, among some black entrepreneurs in and around technology, Arrington’s comments were not a surprise.

“Something could be so normal or commonplace that you don’t even know something is wrong,” said Tayyib Smith, the founder of two.one.five magazine and Little Giant Media. “I don’t begrudge him for saying that because that’s how he feels, it just proves the lay of the land in Silicon Valley, so it was a good thing and it got people talking.”

Read article here!

Heard on Fresh Air from WHYY

December 2, 2011 - TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. On today’s show we remember drummer Paul Motian, who died last week at the age of 80 from complications of a blood and bone marrow disorder.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

Ben Ratliff once wrote of Motian in the New York Times: History’s shaken him out as one of the greatest drummers in all of jazz, a select group that would include, say, Max Roach and Roy Haynes. Will Friedwald once wrote in the New York Sun, quote: “Mr. Motian made history at The Vanguard in 1961 as the drummer with the Bill Evans Trio, whose live album at that already legendary Seventh Avenue basement defined a dynasty of piano players.”

“Mr. Motian then helped two other outstanding pianists, Paul Blew and Keith Jarrett, put their trios on the map. Lots of drummers are about power and energy; Mr. Motian is about supporting a soloist,” unquote.

Motian led a trio that also featured guitarist Bill Frisell and saxophonist Joe Lovano, who played together 30 years, first in a quintet. And he led the Paul Motian Band.

In a moment we’ll hear Terry’s 2006 interview with Paul Motian, but first here’s our jazz critic Kevin Whitehead’s review of two recordings by Motian that showcase his skills as a composer and bandleader. We aired Kevin’s review last year, when the recordings were released.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BIRD SONG”)

KEVIN WHITEHEAD, BYLINE: Paul Motian’s tune “Bird Song.” Jazz drummers leading their own bands tend to favor intricate rhythms and a brisk and driving momentum. Paul Motian, with his slow tempos, loose timing and tunes that go with rainy days, is so self-effacing, he’s almost an anti-drummer. A little rustle of brushes and the faint boom of a bass drum may be enough to nudge the music on.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “BIRD SONG”)

WHITEHEAD: The odd thing is, Motian’s trio album, “Lost in a Dream,” is a sort of triple salute to him: from the Village Vanguard, where it was made; from ECM Records, where he helped shape the label’s own penchant for slow, loose, melancholy jazz; and from his younger side folk, Chris Potter on tenor sax and pianist Jason Moran. They get how to play Motian’s music – make the melody sing and keep the phrasing loose, but show up on time at crucial meeting points.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WHITEHEAD: Saxophonist Chris Potter catches the plaintive quality in the melodies like he’s listened to Motian favorite, Joe Lovano. Pianist Jason Moran underplays his hand, resisting the temptation to fill up space in the absence of a bass player. Interpreting Motian’s melodies, he knows less can be more.

The album “Lost in a Dream” salutes the drummer as composer, too, reviving nice Motian tunes of his from previous albums to remind us he’s never been much for slam-bam drum features. Even his rare solos take their time.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

WHITEHEAD: Listening to the trio on “Lost in a Dream” sent me back to his weird, previous album from later last year. The quintet on “Paul Motian on Broadway, Volume 5″ plays mostly standards, if not all show tunes. In that two-saxophone band, the phrasing is so ragged it’s eerie, almost like they’re rehearsing for the first time. It shouldn’t work, but it does – somehow. It’s haunting like a ghost.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “MIDNIGHT SUN”)

WHITEHEAD: Johnny Mercer’s tune, “Midnight Sun.” Master percussionists often keep several beats or patterns going at once, but Paul Motian may trace a thin watercolor line of rhythm through the heart of a performance, as if he could only play his drums one at a time. It’s all part of his quiet crusade against overplaying. There are flashier drummers around, for sure. But few do better at creating a mood.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DAVIES: FRESH AIR jazz critic Kevin Whitehead in a review aired last year. Before we hear Terry’s 2006 interview with Paul Motian, let’s listen to a track from the album “Portrait in Jazz” by The Bill Evans Trio with Motian on drums. This is “Come Rain or Come Shine.”