The novel The Garies and their Friends is a realistic examination of the complex psychology of blacks trying to assimilate through miscegenation and crossing the color barrier “passing through white." Frank J. Webb criticizes why blacks cannot pass for white through the characters Mr. Winston and Clarence Jr. At the beginning of the novel, Mr. Winston is introduced as a slave who was eventually sold because his master he died with Mr. Garie, someone he worked with on a plantation. In a conversation with Mr. Garie, Mr. Winston said he would not return to New Orleans and said that “since [he] has been in the North [he] hasn't met anyone. but the whites. Mr. Garie replied: I have to tell you... if you were to settle here, you will have to be one thing or the other: white or colored, or you must live exclusively among colored people, or go to the whites and stay with them. But to do the latter, you must keep in mind that it must never be known that you have a drop of African blood in your veins, otherwise you would be shunned as if you were a plague, no matter how beautiful your complexion or how white you may be. Mr. Garie was basically saying that if Mr. Winston ever spoke of him as African American he would not do well in society. This is the beginning of Frank J. Webb's demonstration that blacks cannot pass for white. Mr. Winston said he "has not yet made up his mind to try the experiment, and ... hardly thinks it probable that [he] will." Mr. Winston knew that if he tried to pass for white in the North it wouldn't work because except him and he would probably try to kill him (Webb 41). Clarence Jr. was another character who had mixed race parents and when they were killed and he was forced to pass as white. Mr. Balch t... middle of paper... kicked her ass at home just to see her face. When he met his sister Em again, he asked her to send a letter to Little Birdie stating that she was coming to see him because he had been very ill. When Little Birdie received the letter she immediately went to see him but unfortunately, when she arrived at his house, he died. Frank J. Webb allows us to see that blacks cannot pass for white. Black people should avoid their black friends like Clarence Jr. did. It seems that Clarence Jr. and Mr. Winston didn't feel bad at first about trying to pass as white. Ultimately, they knew that trying to pass as white in the North would be a bad idea, especially for Clarence Jr. He practically killed himself trying to keep a secret from his fiancée and her family. Trying to pass as white wouldn't work for black people and they should just be who they are and not someone they want to be.