Still, the contrasts on offer just a short distance across town from the pristine streets that surround the Supreme Court, Capitol Building and White House can be startling.
Residents struggle with everything from broken glass on the sidewalks and overflowing trash bins to deadly shootings, drug houses, prostitution, gangs of unsupervised teens roaming streets and the highest HIV/AIDS rate of any US city.
So Mason, 78, appreciates it when someone tells it like it is.
"Obama, he is not arrogant at all. He wants to help the lower class people," says the father of six as he eases into a swivel chair and looks on while his youngest son, Robbie, clips his eldest son's hair.
Mason says he had no problem with Obama's Father's Day address last month when he said too many black fathers are missing from their families' lives.
"He's just stating the facts. A lots of black fathers are in prison. He is saying black fathers should step up to the plate."
The favorable views of Obama held by Mason and others in the barbershop are reflected in the findings of nationwide polls. A Gallup poll last month suggested Obama enjoys 86 percent support among African-Americans.
A Pew research poll in March found that even as 36 percent of blacks fear Obama's heritage could hurt his likelihood of winning, three-quarters are impressed with his ability to handle controversy. Blacks make up about 13 percent of the US population as a whole.
"The more they criticize him, the better it gets," says Mason, who saves his own verbal lashing for civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who was caught on video last week muttering into a live microphone that Obama was "talking down to black people," and how Jackson, 66, wanted to "cut his nuts off."
"It's time for him to sit down," says Mason.
His son, Nurney K. Mason, 51, draped in a black salon cape, agrees.
"Nothing is sadder than a person embittered by the spotlight that has passed them by. Go out in dignity, Jesse," he says.
Nearby, Robert Mackey, 61, sits before a checker board, the chips laid out neatly in preparation for the next game, and says that racial discrimination is no longer the primary obstacle for the black community in America.
"When Martin Luther King was around there were a lot of black-white issues," he says.
"That generation has passed. People change."
Now, he says blacks largely face the same issues as whites, with high gas prices, rising cost of living, homes that are unaffordable, and a war in Iraq that many feel is misguided.
But Mackey says one issue of particular resonance for blacks is education -- poor quality schools, broken down classrooms, lack of energetic teachers -- and he is optimistic that Obama will be the one to fix that.
"Hopefully he can open the door for us as a people."
Upstairs from the barbershop at the Sophizticated Ladyz Hair Salon, owner Charlene Brown nods as she recalls Obama's speech about absent fathers.
"I'm one of those victims," says Brown, 36, a single mother who works in a government office by day and styles hair evenings and weekends, and who laments the quality of education her teenage son is getting in public school.
"Our race is against each other more than we are supporting each other," she says as her gloved hands press cream relaxer into a client's hair. "We are our own haters at times, especially if we are successful."
Even though she calls herself a victim, she rejects the mantle of victimhood -- saying she works a desk job for stable pay and benefits, and the stylist job because she likes making women feel special.
"I don't think he was talking down. I think he was talking for improvements," she says.
"All I know is he 'da bomb, and I'm gonna vote for him," she grins.
"He would be, like, a super idol for our community, for all the ones who have low hopes and dreams."
Folks need to help their own selves and not wait for Barack Obama to do it. Even if he wins he won’t do it for them.
An encouraging AND sad article. Encouraging that blacks acknowledge that the lack of personal responsibility in the black community is the source of their problem. Sad that they can only accept the facts from a black man. Also sad that they don’t connect socialism with their plight.
Man as a species has two great traits. The first is a weakness to take any alternative offered to avoid doing what is required to overcome. The second is the ability to overcome most any obstacle when there is no alternative.
Waiting for change and Obama is it. They will follow him like he's the 'Pied Piper'. Lemmings going over the cliff into the water to drown.
Obama IS the enemy within.
Weren’t these the same people who were trashing Bill Cosby for saying black men should ‘step up to the plate’?
“His son, Nurney K. Mason, 51, draped in a black salon cape, agrees.”
“Nurney?????”
He oughta sue his parents!
“He says he is going to bring about a change. Everyone knows it’s time. It’s the right time.”
Change?? What change?? I have yet to hear B-Hussein-O say exactly what changes he will make! The only change I can see with The Obammunist as POTUS is our country changing from a capitalist nation to a communist nation! (That New Yorker cover is dead-on!)
I don't want it any more than the employees, but the socialist is his own worst enemy (assuming he wants an income).
.....What a crock this story is....black Democrats legally seized power in Washington DC over 40 years ago....they’ve had unbroken control of the city ever since.
.....I’ll tell you what the Obama campaign is really gonna accomplish...it’s gonna signal that white patience is running out with Blacks....40 years of being told that we gotta do more to help them is enough!
We should vote for policies and direction; therefore I will not vote for a socialist!
Blacks that are motivated by skin color are RACISTS!
LLS
Obama is in real trouble if he can't do better than John Kerry did with black voters.
Anyone who votes for this no experience socialist is abdicating one of his or her civic responsibilties. Obama is the most unqualified democrat ever to run for president. There is nothing but thin air under this man. All of his past radical associations are to be forgotten. He is so arrogant, he thinks he can simply walk away from having to explain anything. Of course he is aided in this quest by the biased radical left media who are trying to sell him to main stream America. A vote for Obama is a vote for chaos....I hope America wakes up.
Funny, I've been saying this my entire life, and I just get labled a racist cracker when I say it. Blacks want better lives for thier kids, here's the deal.. black women, keep your legs crossed and don't give a black man the time of day if he isn't willing to marry you, get educated, get a decent job and raise his kids.
If you can't find a black man that's willing to do that, then you date someone who is, regardless of their skin color.
Stop blaming Whitey, stop claiming "thuggery" is a culture, and stop making excuses and make changes.
Enemy within = chronic delusions of persecution = psychosis
Bullshite....it may not be the home you want though. Everyone can't have a MacMansion yet....
"I'm one of those victims," says Brown, 36, a single mother
a victim of her and her stallion's own doing....not the government, nor mine, nor my family, nor whites in general unless the Stud was a peckerwood. ...she is a victim of her own poor decision making.
i am in favor of some charity to make sure her children are not hungry and well clothed and a basic education too but that will take her doing more than my tax dollars......and not in the hands of school board commisars.
what a veritable mess....what percentage of black culture is like this? probably 80% in DC at least.....less in Bismark or Boise maybe?
stupid white folks and the black morass make a fat vote pool for the Black Kingfish.
ironically at least for this board is that the Mexican invaders will probably deliver us from Obama.
damn, what a trip our FUBAR culture has become....a heady stew of completely non complimentary ingredients all vying for the gravy ladle