Strong leaders who brought blacks through the hardships of the civil rights movement helped paint a positive self-portrait. This internal racial uplift has never ceased to grow or gain outside attention. .
Class mobility has altered blackness to affirm multiple black identities. Because no two black people have the same success in life, there will be class differences present. With class mobility, those differences are identified as class division.
The main character in Barbershop, Calvin, decides that he wants a better lifestyle. He remains determined although disappointed in the past that one of his money making ideas will eventually pay off. He hopes to build a new studio that will make him very profitable and reward his new family with a home "like Oprah's". He at first sees his inheritance of his deceased father's barbershop a burden and waste of time. The struggling business undoubtedly won't give him the class mobility that he seeks so he decides to sell his shop to the loan shark, Lester, for money to build his new studio.
Underscoring the importance of family traditions.
When Calvin told Eddie that he had sold the barbershop, he realized how much the shop meant to people. His selfish decision puts his employees out of work and his customers out of a barbershop.
Eddie is the eldest barber in the shop who has the strongest opinions and no customers. He's worked there since Calvin's father owned it. Calvin doesn't realize that his family's tradition not only affects him but everyone else. Disappointed in Calvin's decision to end his family's tradition of passing the barbershop down to each child, Eddie expresses the importance of tradition to Calvin:.
Eddie This barbershop is something worth saving. It's where the black man means something. The barbershop is our own country club. .
Calvin My father died broke and .
frustrated. . .
Eddie Your daddy wasn't rich, but he invested in people and gave them an opportunity to make something of themselves.
