Joy and Pain : A Story of Black Life and Liberation in Five Albums.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sojoyner, Damien M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

African Americans--California--Los Angeles--Social conditions.

African Americans.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration--California--Los Angeles.

Discrimination in criminal justice administration.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (242 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Joy and Pain

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2022.

Summary:

A poignant account of how the carceral state shapes daily life for young Black people--and how Black Americans resist, find joy, and cultivate new visions for the future. At the Southern California Library--a community organization and an archive of radical and progressive movements--the author meets a young man, Marley. In telling Marley's story, Damien M. Sojoyner depicts the overwhelming nature of Black precarity in the twenty‑first 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 Marley's 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, Marley's experiences at the intersection of history and the contemporary political moment invite us to imagine more expansive futures.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Look at California

Album 1 Hidden in Plain Sight

A side A Place Called Home

B Side: Manufacturing a Problem

Album 2: the heart of rebellion

A Side: A True Education

B Side: Watts to the Future

Album 3: all that glitters

A Side: Nonprofit Management

B Side: All Power to the People

Album 4: cruel and beautiful

A Side: Shelter from Paradise

B Side: Socialist Visions

Album 5: Liberatory vibes

A Side: Freedom Ain’t Free

B Side: The Price of Freedom

Closing Note: Freedom on the Mind

Grounding materials

Works cited

Illustration Credits

Index

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780520390430

0520390431

OCLC:

1338835902