Reads and Listens for the Holiday Weekend

We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.

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Hi there.

A few longer essays are in the works. In the meantime, here’s what I’ve been thinking about this holiday weekend honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Read

• MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech (NPR). Take a minute and bask in the rhetorical power of King’s 1963 speech. MLK described the Constitution and Declaration of Independence as a “promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” a check that America had defaulted regarding its citizens of color. Despite this, King and his followers refused “to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” His urgent optimism is ever timely in a nation that so often falls short of its liberal ideals. Listen to the speech. Watch on YouTube.
  

• “When Did Fitness Become a Luxury Item?” (Culture Study). Natalia Mehlman Petrzela discusses her new book, Fit Nation, with Anne Helen Petersen. Petrzela argues that the financial crisis of 2007-8 made boutique fitness—pay-per-class gyms, $100+ leggings, $250 running shoes…