Don't Let It Get You Down

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This powerful collection of essays offers poignant reflections on navigating society’s most charged and polarized spaces—race, class, and body type. Savala Trepczynski, with a Black and Mexican father and a white mother, embodies the complexities of a mixed-race identity, marked by her light complexion and distinct features. Her experiences range from battling societal expectations around weight, having been both painfully thin and truly fat, to grappling with the contrasts of poverty and wealth. The twelve essays delve into these liminal spaces, providing a nuanced understanding of societal tensions. Rich with unforgettable anecdotes, they blend humor with Trepczynski’s appetites and anxieties. In “On Dating White Guys While Me,” she reflects on her early romantic choices as acts of self-erasure. “Don’t Let it Get You Down” explores the cyclical richness and sorrow of being Black in America, addressing police brutality and stigma. “Bad Education” reveals how women internalize rage for survival, while “To Wit and Also” confronts the legacy of enslaved women owned by her ancestors. Trepczynski emphasizes that true identities often thrive not in black and white, but in the grey of the in-between, offering essential insights on race, class, bodies, and gender in contemporary America.