Savala Nolan Recounts Trespass Against Black Womens’ Bodies in ‘Don’t Let it Get you Down’

In her debut memoir, “Don’t Let it Get You Down: Essays on Race, Gender, and the Body,” Savala Nolan’s 12 deeply personal essays probe unsettled territory in her own life.  Nolan tackles motherhood, sex, and feelings of otherness from the perspective of a self-described big-bodied mixed-race woman.  One essay recounts her persistent prenatal pain that was ignored by her white physicians despite multiple emergency room visits. The author and director of the Center for Social Justice at the University of California, Berkeley, joins us to share her observations about the way our culture treats Black women.