Joy and Pain

A poignant account of how the carceral state shapes daily life for young Black peopleand how Black Americans resist, find joy, and cultivate new visions for the future. At the Southern California Librarya community organization and an archive of radical and progressive movementsthe author meets a young man, Marley. In telling Marleys story, Damien M. Sojoyner depicts the overwhelming nature of Black precarity in the twentyfirst century through the lenses of housing, education, health care, social services, and juvenile detention. But Black life is not defined by precarity; it embraces social visions of radical freedom that allow the pursuit of a life of joy beyond systems of oppression. Structured as a record collection of five albums, this innovative book relates Marleys personal encounters with everyday aspects of the carceral state through an ethnographic A side and offers deeper context through an anthropological and archival B side. In Joy and Pain, Marleys experiences at the intersection of history and the contemporary political moment invite us to imagine more expansive futures.