Wilbert Rideau The Real Story

           In the second to last chapter in Wilbert Rideau’s memoir, In The Place of Justice (Random House 2010), titled “Behind Enemy Lines,” the famed prison journalist lamented about the travails his massive defense team faced preparing for his fourth murder trial. According to the former award-winning convict editor, the District Attorney, the Trial Judge, and the entire White Community of Lake Charles, Louisiana joined in a massive conspiracy to convict him a fourth time for the brutal murder of bank teller Julia Ferguson. And the prospect of being sent back into the Louisiana prison system as just another prisoner scared the crap out of him. He expressed the fear this way:

            “ … I thought of everything I had given up at Angola for what was my last shot a freedom. I was at the top of the pecking order in Angola’s inmate society. I had the best job in the prison, where I could weave some meaning into my existence. I sat on the boards of several inmate clubs, which expanded my ability to make a difference in the quality of prisoners’ lives. I was the president of the Human Relations Club, which enabled me to bring resources to bear to help elderly prisoners and hospice patients. I was one of a handful of inmate leaders who worked together for the good of the whole institution, inmates and staff alike, rather than for their own personal ends. We worked to keep peace and order in the prison, though this was sometimes misunderstood by inmates who saw Angola only through the narrow lens of their personal pain. And I had perks. I worked in an air-conditioned office rather than in the field. Even though my traveling was cut out and media access to me increasingly restricted and monitored Burl Cain’s arrival in 1995, and even though The Angolite was censored, what I left behind at Angola was a relative paradise compared to what I could look forward to if we lost this trial. I had to believe Providence had something better in store for me; still, the specter of a cell at Wade haunted my waking thoughts and gave me night sweats whenever things took a turn for the worse.”

            Let me translate that “prison rehabilitation” double-speak into real world language. The “meaning” Rideau had managed to “weave” into his prison existence was the “celebrity status” he had achieved as the “famed prison journalist.” He and that “handful of [other] inmate leaders” did not work for the “good of the whole institution.” They very well may have participated in some projects that helped the “elderly prisoners and hospice patients” but their motives were not as altruistic as Rideau would have readers believe. Being involved in self-help inmate organizations provided the more intelligent and skilled inmates (more commonly referred in the prison community as “inmate politicians) an opportunity to accumulate status and influence in the prison community, especially among the staff. Rideau even pointed out that their efforts were “sometimes misunderstood by [the other] inmates.” No, the general inmate population did not misunderstand either their actions or motives. They knew Rideau and his cohorts were kissing ass with the administration to protect their own admitted “privileged” status. I know. I was once at that fair and seen that bear.

            As for one of Rideau’s favorite terms, “make a difference,” I discussed in my last post his claim of how he reportedly made a “difference for the citizens of Lake Charles.” The term sounds good, especially when used in the context to make Rideau out as a savior in the world. The problem is that nothing about the term, as it is used in Rideau’s memoir, is true.

            But I am sure it is true that Rideau did experience “night sweats” when he thought about spending the rest of his life in a “cell at Wade.” I was in one of those cells “at Wade” for nine years as a non-privileged inmate—and I spent two years after that in general population “at Phelps”—another medium security facility in the Louisiana prison system. Rideau stepped on a lot of people rising to, and maintaining, that position as “the nation’s most rehabilitated prisoner.” And as the old saying goes: you meet the people on the way down that you stepped on on the way up. There were a significant number of inmates waiting in the wings to remind him of that harsh reality.

            Still, I don’t know of any inmate, except Wilbert Rideau, who would have endured “night sweats” at the thought of being re-convicted because it would have meant returning to prison as a regular inmate and not as the top chicken in the “pecking order” in the prison community. You are what you are. Fame and celebrity status do not define the individual—unless you’re Wilbert Rideau. He had cultivated an “image” in both the prison and free worlds that had no basis in fact or reality. He knew he didn’t have the gravel in the voice or the sand in the balls to make it in the real “belly of the beast.”  Inmates at the bottom of the ladder do not care about fame-produced status; they respect only what you carry between your legs and your ability to cope with the shared misery so prevalent in the “belly of the beast.” Rideau couldn’t measure up in either regard.

            Tragically, to this very day, Wilbert Rideau still fondly looks back on those days when he was a “big shot” in the world of prison. The free world has obviously been a disappointment for him in that respect. He’s been unable to climb to the top of its “pecking order.” Even his memoir has thus failed to propel him to the top of that order warranting at least CNN anchor spot. For all practical purposes, he’s just another whining “celebrity” ex-con who hasn’t measured up to the hype. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again, Rideau should just get an honest job, embrace an anonymous life, and be thankful for both.