 Sister Power's vision is that women everywhere will learn to live as sisters, to respect each other's differences, to heal each other's wounds, to promote each other's progress, and to benefit from each other's knowledge. Our vision here at Sister Power is to create activities and services designed exclusively to increase women's networking opportunities, to build the knowledge and skills that lead to self-sufficiency and empowerment. Aloha, this is Sister Power. I'm your host. My name is Sharon Thomas-Yarbrough, and we have a very special guest with us, Attorney Daphne Barbie-Wilton. Welcome to Sister Power. Thank you so much, Sharon. I appreciate it. Oh, we appreciate you. We appreciate having you here. How's it going so far? How's your day so far? My day has been nice so far. So it's good, and it's always good to end it on a positive note with you. Oh, that's wonderful. Well, let's get started. I know you're the number one civil rights attorney here in Honolulu. And just give us a bit, a piece of background, a brief description about you and how you became an attorney, and why. OK. I don't know if I'm the number one attorney, but thank you for saying that. I am one of the few, unfortunately, it's few in Hawaii. There's very few attorneys that do civil rights law. There used to be more, but things changed. But I appreciate being in the league with them. How I became an attorney, I was very young. My father was a lawyer, and he was also a civil rights lawyer and a state legislator in the state of Wisconsin. And one day, in sixth grade, these boys were pulling my hair. I had pigtails, and they were pulling my pigtails. And they really bothered me. So in my little sixth grade mind, I decided I would get back at them. So what I did is after they pulled my hair and started snickering, and the bell rang, and you have to line up. I ran to both of them, and I kicked them, and I ran away. So I ran down the stairs. The problem was I didn't think about that getaway. And so I fell. I tripped and fell down the stairs. I was running so fast. I broke my ankle. So what happened is, make a long story short, the ambulance came. And it was a big to-do. And it took me away to the hospital in those days. They had a big cast. They didn't have the walking cast that they put on my foot. And I had to stay home in the house by myself while my brothers went to school and my father went to work. And I stayed in his library. And so with my foot elevated, I had nothing to do but to read books. And I started reading books such as Clarence Darrell's book. Clarence Darrell is a famous attorney. He was a criminal defense attorney, a constitutional law attorney. And I started reading his story in sixth grade. And I loved it. And I thought, that's what I want to be when I get older. And so I planned it from that day. And thanks to my broken ankle and thanks for me reacting instead of thinking about it, instead of telling the teacher I applauded my own revenge and just taught me a lesson, don't plot your own revenge right away. Don't react. You have to take a pause and think about something. I mean, there may be another way to do it than to kick the person who fooled my big tails. But on the other hand, it took me to a place, a better place. Because I had a whole month off of school, the big cast was on. And I was able to read many law books, not just Clarence Darrell's autobiography, but I read other autobiographies. I read about Thurgood Marshall. I read about a lot of it was attorneys, because again, my father was an attorney. And I read about how you can make change with the law. You don't just go to law school and become a lawyer to make money. But you can actually change and make the world a better place by the types of cases that you take, the arguments that you make. And so at that time, sex, meaning me being a female, didn't even enter my mind. It was just a passion that was ignited in me that I'm going to go and be a lawyer. Just like Clarence Darrell and, you know, it was real. That's what happened. Well, we have a picture of you and your father. He was a civil rights activist. And we have that, well, that's you with your father, Lloyd E. Barbie. Tell us a little more about your father. Well, my father, as I stated, he was the second African-American legislator in Wisconsin. And actually, there's going to be a book coming out in October 2017 that the Wisconsin Historical Press is publishing and it has a lot of his writings and thoughts. But he was not just a civil rights attorney and activist. He was also a legislator. He got the Fair Housing Bill passed. He did a lot of the civil rights acts that are now in Wisconsin passed. He fought for women's rights. He fought for gay rights. He fought for all of this, and this is during the 1960s, and now it's 2017. And it looks like the same fight is still going on. And also, he taught in the Department of Africology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. So he was a very forward-thinking man. And as I stated, there is a book at which I helped edit that is coming out in October 2017. I think there will be a book signing here in Honolulu. Okay. I hope this is in part Hawaii is able to do that book signing. I'm hoping so. Tell us about the name of the book. Justice for All. Justice for All. Where did you go to law school? I will back up a little bit. I went to undergrad at University of Wisconsin in Madison and studied philosophy. And the reason I picked philosophy was I loved Angela Davis, and I thought, oh, you know, I'm going to be a philosopher and a lawyer. And so then I applied for various law schools around the country, and University of Washington in Seattle accepted me. And that's where I went to law school in Seattle. Here's a front cover of your book, Justice for All, Selected Writings of Lloyd A. Barbie. And if you notice, the forward is by Congresswoman Gwen Moore, another sister right on. And she is the only African-American Congresswoman from Wisconsin. Wow. So you have some heavy weights there. So what does it take to be an attorney? Well, first you have to go through law school. A lot of people ask me that question, especially high school students who are thinking about being lawyers. You have to go through undergrad first in America. And then after you get your undergrad degree, you take what's called the LSAT. It's a test to see whether or not you have high scores in order to get into the law school. And then you pick the law school, and in my case, University of Washington, Seattle, they wanted an essay. So I wrote an essay, and apparently it was good enough to get accepted in. And then you go through first year of law, it's three years, and first year is the hardest. And people who tell me law school is fun and enjoyable, I look at them like they're crazy because it was very, very difficult. It was hard. You had to read thick books. You had to learn the facts of the cases. You had to take difficult subjects. It was not easy. At the law school I went to, University of Washington in Seattle, we had some professors who believed that they were free to call on students and just embarrass them in front of everybody else and yell at them. But you know what? It taught me a lot because that happens in real life when you're a lawyer and you're in court and you have a judge that's yelling at you or asking for a specific point. So it taught me a lot, but it was a lot of hard work. When you get up in the morning, 8 o'clock, go to law school, you don't get back till 10 sometimes because you're reading the cases and preparing for the next day. So it is not easy. It was not easy for me. Maybe there are some other people who thought it was easy. But the people I went to law school did not think it was easy and in fact a lot of my friends dropped out. That's why the name of this episode is called Practicing Law, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. And so you have talked about how hard it takes to be an attorney. And what piece of advice would you give to women attorneys? Persevere. That's the number one thing you have to do. I don't know if any of you have been following what's going on in political scenes in Washington, D.C., the Senate when the women senators or congressmen start speaking to power, they get shut down, get told that they can't speak anymore, and yet they persevere. And so that's what you have to do when you're a lawyer and in law school. But let's say you get out of law school, you have to persevere. You may not win a case, the first case that you have, or even the tenth case that you have. You keep going, and you learn from your mistakes, and you just keep moving forward. You never give up. Because if you give up, that's what happens. You fail. But you can never fail. If you get back up, learn from your mistakes, and keep going. Well, I'm glad you did bring that up. We have a fabulous picture here with the former first lady, Michelle Obama, absolutely. And we also have a picture with you, and it's coming up very soon, three powerful attorneys. We have Michelle Obama here, she's an attorney as well, and we have Hawaii's first African American woman judge, and then there's you. So we have three powerful attorneys there. What were you discussing at that time? Do you remember? Yes, I absolutely remember. You can never forget when you meet the first lady, and she wasn't the first lady at the time. They came, her and her husband, the former president, Barack Obama, whom I dearly love and admire. I second that emoji. They came to Hawaii because you know he was born in Hawaii, which is part of the United States, not Kenya. And so what happened is they were brought by the Democratic Party, and I went, and we had a chance to hear him speak, and off to the side was Michelle Obama with her two children. So while the crowd gathered around President Obama, at that time he was Senator Obama from Chicago, and I did take pictures of Senator Obama at the time, I veered off to the left and went where Michelle and her two children were, because nobody was there. And Sandra must have seen me, because she came up too. So it was myself, Sandra and Michelle, and we talked about her, her life. We talked about how she liked Hawaii, and we talked politics, and she was brilliant. We talked about Hawaii politics. I told her, I went to undergrad in a neighboring state, Wisconsin. We talked about that law school, and we talked about my father, and it was, she was just so brilliant. She was so kind and patient while her husband gathered all of the sunlight, I mean not all of it, but most of it, and people adoring him and just hanging on to him. She was just so calm, cool, she wasn t upset. I thought the world of her, and I still do, she was brilliant woman, brilliant. Very gracious. I had the opportunity of meeting both of them, and it s something that President Barack Obama, also an attorney before he became Senator, and then later on the first African-American president had the opportunity to meet them, and you have written a book. I just want to move forward. We have so much to talk about, which is wonderful, and it s up on the screen now, African-American attorneys in Hawaii. Yes. Now what led you to write this book? You know, that President Barack Obama, right there, and your husband, Andre Wooten, is an attorney as well. I took that picture, and let me tell you what happened, that was at the same time that I was with Michelle Obama, is someone took that picture, we had put it on the web, and someone took it and snatched it and took my husband s head off and put Osama Bin Laden s head on. And so it looked like President Obama was with Osama Bin Laden, but in essence, it really was Andre's aloha shirt and his shaka, not Osama Bin Laden. As we know, Osama Bin Laden was killed by who? President Obama. President. But what they were trying to do, Osama Obama, trying to link them together and say that Obama was with ISIL, not ISIS, but ISIL, or that he was a terrorist and he wasn't born in America. And basically, I think it s racism. Someone who, I'd say the mainstream, does not look like Donald Trump or does not look like Jeff Sessions has to be a foreigner, but sorry, we re American all the way. Both America going to stay American, and this is who we are, except us, because we re going to stay here. Ladies. I love it. We have a history lesson right along with legal questions as well. I have a quick question for you. As a woman, African-American attorney, have you encountered problems here in Hawaii? Oh, absolutely. I can tell you what happened to me a couple years ago. I went to the prison to see one of my clients in the very business, both prisons. I m going to start with the federal prison first. I went to the federal prison to visit my client, who was a female. They wouldn t let me in. The reason they wouldn t let me into the prison, and by the way, I look like I look now. I had a jacket and a long skirt. I tried my best to be very conservative looking, because I know the perception is that this doesn t look like the average attorney. So I went there, and they told me I couldn t come in to see her, and I asked why, and they said, were you wearing the wrong kind of bra? Apparently, there s this little security gizmo that goes beep like that, and they said, you have a wire bra, and you can t come in, and I said, well, I ll just go change, take off my wire bra, because I had a jacket, and they said, no, you can t do that. You have to wear a bra. And I said, wait a minute, that male attorney just walked through. He wasn t wearing a bra, why didn t you stop him? And they said, well, he s male. And I said, well, that s sex discrimination, and it is. It s sex discrimination, all right? So I complained and complained, and they still wouldn t let me in. So I wrote in the journal, you have to write your name, and I said, this is sex discrimination, they wouldn t let me in. And I was really hot, mad, and so I went back to my office, and I googled and legal research and found out in Florida, the same thing, they weren t letting women attorneys into the federal prisons, because they said they had wire in their bras. So I wrote my complaints, of course, I wrote to the, oh, are you women lawyers? They didn t answer me. I wrote to a whole bunch of people, and one of the people I wrote to was then Senator Hanabusa, now she s a congresswoman now. And Hanabusa, she stepped right in and wrote to the warden of the prison and said, why is it you re not letting female attorneys in, you know, for, because you think their bras aren t appropriate. And yet in Florida, the case I found in Florida, they had to settle. The federal penitentiary had to settle with women lawyers, because of this, you know, this ridiculousness. I mean, we re not in there for a fashion show, we re in there to provide legal advice. Well, we ll continue, we re going to take a quick break, and when we come back, when we come back, this is interesting, and we ll talk more about practicing all the good, the bad, and the ugly. Stay tuned. Welcome back to Sister Power. I m your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, and we are here with our special guest, Attorney Daphne Barbie Wooten. And we were just ending a note on the, our episode title is practicing all the good, the bad, and the ugly. Continue that story about you going into the prison and being discriminated against. Well, after that happened, as I stated, Senator Hanabusa wrote a letter to the warden, because my letters weren t answered, and asked why it was that he was treating women attorneys differently from male attorneys, and could he point out it was male warden at the time, the rule that says women have to wear certain types of bras, and do people know this? And also she pointed out that I had found a case in Florida where they had to settle with women attorneys, because they were doing the same thing, not letting them in. Bottom line, Warden wrote me a letter and wrote Senator Hanabusa a letter. Was it a apology letter? Yes, and then said, oh, please let me know, and sorry, you went through this, and next time you come, let me know. And I did come two days later, because I just wanted to see, and also check on my client, and I got escorted in. I was treated very nicely. The person who escorted me in made sure the people at the desk knows she is allowed in. So I was treated very well, and my client actually got a good deal. But that s another story. So then I want to tell you the same year I went to OCCC, and I know OCCC, that s the pretrial prison here on O'ahu. I ve had problems before, so I was dressed conservatively, so I can get in to see my client, because that s the goal. And we re not there to dress up. We re there to get into the prison, talk to our clients and get out. And I went there. I was conservatively dressed. I had my jacket on, and I was told by a female person who was a guard that I couldn t get in, and I said, why? And she said, I can see your knees, and I said, well, I have appropriate dress. I m on the attorney. I m here to see my client. And she says, I can t wear that. You can t wear that. And I said, well, you re not a lawyer. I am a lawyer. And she said, no. And I said, I want to talk to you. Supervisor. Supervisor came over, and she said, look at what she s wearing. She can t get in to prison like that. You know, treating me, not just me, but there was an elderly woman behind me who had a t-shirt, and the lady starts yelling at this elderly lady who only wanted to pay money to her son s account. That s all she wanted to do. And she starts saying, you can t come in either, because you have a t-shirt, and t-shirts aren t on loud. The t-shirt didn t have any slogan on it, and she was like 90 years old. But anyway, so the supervisor said, oh yeah, you know, I guess you can t come in. And so I wrote a letter, and I got a letter back from not the warden, but I got a letter back from the person who handles gender and equity issues at the prison, and she apologized profusely and said that because I had someone take a picture of how I looked and said that I was appropriately dressed and that she will counsel the people involved. You know, and then I found out later that a lot of women attorneys have these problems. Let s get together women. We don t need to be solo on these complaints. Let s get together. You ve heard it here. Yeah. Right here, people come. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. And speak your piece. That s right. And document your complaints. You know, write to your senators, write to your congresspersons, you know. But the, you asked me about the good, bad and ugly. Yes. I have a case that I just wanted to talk about, and it exemplifies the good, bad, and ugly. First of all, I had one case where my client was called Nasty Names at Work that I thought was racial and national origin. And I went before a judge who previously he and I had battled wits, shall we say, in cases. I asked the judge to recuse himself, and he said no. So without a jury trial, he dismissed the case against my client and made derogatory remarks about my client, then ordered him to pay the other side s attorney s fees. Now the other side was a very wealthy corporation, and they had like four or five attorneys. So it came out to over a hundred thousand, which is ridiculous for someone who got fired for who had, was subjected to slurs, you know, derogatory slurs. So we appealed. That was the ugly part. And the bad part was, you know, them dismissing it and the judge disregarding my client s plea, my client s, you know, let the jury decide. Sure. I mean, don t just decide, oh, no. So anyways, we took it up on appeal, and we won at the Supreme Court, but it took like seven to eight years. So in the meantime, you know, a lot of clients, they can t find jobs because the first thing they say is, what happened to your other job? Well, you know, I filed a case against them. But we did win. It took a long time. And that s what I say about persevering, and persevering is very important. You may win, you may lose a battle, but win a war. And also, I had, as far as the best case, one of the best cases, because I had a lot of good cases, is when I worked at the EEOC, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a trial attorney, and I was sent to Saipan and Guam. And when I went to Saipan and Guam, something that opened my eyes is we did a class action lawsuit. Women were being recruited from China and the Philippines to work in Saipan as waitresses. When they got to Saipan, they were put, they had jobs as prostitutes. And their passports were taken from them, and they were kept behind bars. I mean, you know, barbed wire in the bar. And so what I did in the EEOC, the federal government, at that time, is we went in there and we charged them, not the women, of course, but the owners of the bars. And they had to let the women go, and the women, you know, left. But the scary thing was, had there been no EEOC or no oversight, this is sex slavery. It was basically slavery. And I, coming from an African-American perspective, you know, I get upset, 400 years of slavery, we need reparations, we haven't got reparations. But it opened my mind that, you know, it's not just African-Americans. No. It's Hawaiians. It's Filipino women, Chinese women. Many kinds of, not just women, but men, too. And, you know, it took me a while to realize slavery is still here in the world. And there's a lot people can do to stop it. So that was one of the good cases, because it resolved the matter, and the women got paid, by the way. They got money. Yeah. Well, you know, you're so interesting, and I want to hear far more, but it's a question I would like to ask you. What do you, Attorney Barbie, consider to be your greatest accomplishment as an attorney? Well, that's a good question. Like I just mentioned, going to Saipan and Guam, there was a situation where at one of the factories that was building shoes in Saipan again, the women who came from China had to sign a written agreement saying they would not get pregnant. And if they got pregnant, they would be sent back to China. And we actually got a copy of this. That's against the pregnancy discrimination in the United States. We have laws against. You can't discriminate against women who are pregnant. And so here we have a piece of paper, and we took it to court, and of course we won. But there was a woman there who got pregnant, and they were trying to force an abortion on her. The employer tried to force her, because they pulled out the piece of paper and said, you signed this, so you either get an abortion and we send you back to China. I kid you not. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So you're saving lives as well? Yeah. Mm-hmm. So as far as accomplishments, that's one of the cases, I think, is that I look upon fondly that I was able to stop that, and the practice, not just for this one woman, but for the whole practice, the way that they treat the employees. But there's a lot. There's a lot. Well, we have to come back. I know time. Sure. Well, to end on a note, practicing law, the good, the bad, and the ugly, tell us one thing that we don't know. Share with the audience all over the world, the listening audience, something that we have not discussed. I know you're an author. How do you balance all of this? Balance is very difficult. If you have a trial, I go to court at 8 o'clock, come back from court for 30, prepare for the next day. But if I don't have a trial, I exercise. I do my best in giving priority to my body, exercise so I can keep going, try to eat right, try to go out and have some fun, go out with friends, listen to jazz, talk story with my husband and my relatives. You do have to balance and take vacations. And that's something I do a lot. I take vacations, I go to Jamaica because no one can really reach me there. It's not internet friendly or wired up. And you can go to other places besides there. And I love to travel, not just to Jamaica, but to all over the world. Well, thank you, Attorney Daffy-Barbie Wooten. You must come back. Yes. Again, this is Sister Power. I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, Oceans of Aloha, Peace and Love. Thank you. That was so good. Mahalo. Thank you.