Get By: A Survival Guide for Black Gay Youth Paperback - 2005

There exist certain advantages to communicating through print, in that it removes our natural verbal impediments. Our stammering and bobbling of words is replaced by the smooth machine-like flow of simple letters on a page. Of course, there are times when that's an advantage. Yet the passion behind Jonathan W. Jones' words reminds us of how this impersonal communication can do us an incredible disservice. Jonathan W. Jones' words have always conveyed a sense of his intelligence, but they cannot begin to illustrate the conviction with which he makes his points. When he talks about social advocacy, you can hear the irrepressible smile in his voice. When he discusses confronting homophobia in the Black community, the words start to come faster and begin spilling into one another as containing his enthusiasm becomes increasingly difficult. And when he talks about the woes of life as a "double minority", his tone takes on an acidic gravity that shows how deeply offended he is at the injustices of the world. It is this sincerity, manifested in his script, that makes Jonathan W. Jones the seminal young author that he is today. Whatever the topic, he seems to be lurking behind every word he writes; he genuinely means them. He is not some fly-by-night writer looking to make a quick buck before his limited scope diminishes. He is an author who carefully considers every factor that goes into his work and labors tirelessly to achieve his goals. Jonathan W. Jones represents a great deal of that which is good about the current generation of empowered young minds.