Wilbert Rideau The Real Story

            The Shirley Sherrod episode has stirred the racial consciousness in America much like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright controversy did in 2008. These kinds of episodes for the most part trigger healthy discussions among every day Americans about the state of race relations in this country. But they also unleash the extreme voices, the fringe lunatics who want to sling charges of racism against any and every one who may say something unkind about a member of another race. I recently became a target of this fringe “racism-charging” element by one of Wilbert Rideau’s “white male” supporters. The supporter’s comments and my reply to them can be found here. But essentially the white male supporter charged:

            “Mr. Sinclair obviuously [sic] has an agenda, and and [sic] that is to make himself look good while making Mr. Rideau look like a pathalogical [sic] liar. Mr. Sinclair is just another of the good ol’ boy, institutional racism that exist just under the radar in the country. As a white male, I have met other people like sinclair [sic] who refuse to believe that a black man may be a good man. All they see is color, and it sickens me…”

            There’s a saying we fondly use in Texas that “he’s all hat and no cattle.” Well, that pretty much fits Rideau’s “white male” supporter. I find it almost amusing that I am charged with racism against the very man who played the “race card” at every turn through his 44-year privileged incarceration in the Louisiana prison system, during his fourth murder trial in January 2005, and throughout his memoir, In The Place of Justice (Random House 2010) yet who said “white people” were really his only friends and supporters.

            Rideau’s gives passing mention in his memoir to three of his black friends—Calvin Duncan, Lafayette Ballard, and Sidney Deloch—who were instrumental in different ways of helping the famed prison journalist win his freedom from the Louisiana prison they shared. Rideau does not mention in his memoir a single thing he did for them, or for his white friend Douglas “Swede” Dennis who he promised to help once he got his free world life in order. Apparently he and his wife were too consumed hustling The Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation for the $150,000 in grant money they got in 2006-2007 to be concerned about “friends” (black or white) left behind in prison.

            I’ve been a free man from the Louisiana prison system for more than four years. I work for a living. I don’t suckle on the tit of grant money to get by. I am in frequent contact with two black friends I left behind in the prison system. I stay in contact with their families. I frequently send their families money to help provide for the basic living needs of the two inmates. I do this because I “promised” that if I was ever in a position to help them, I would—and I have kept my word. The best friend I have in this world is a black man with whom I spent more than a decade in prison. Today he is married, active in his church, supports his wife’s children and grandchildren, and works hard for a living as a long-haul truck driver. He and I both understand the value of family, friendship, and work. Rideau does not possess these character traits—never has, never will. He is an incurable sociopath, and, yes, a pathological liar as well.

            Had Wilbert Rideau left me and my wife alone in his penny ante memoir, the “famed prison journalist” could have skated through the media glory promoting his book without our fact-checking and criticism. But in his warped perspective he felt compelled to “get even” with all the people he believes wronged him in one way or another throughout his privileged penal incarceration. But there’s an inevitable cost in lying, misrepresenting, and fabricating—chickens do come home to roost.

            No one has come forward to refute any of the “facts” and charges I have made on this website about In The Place of Justice. I’m sorry that a number of respected members of the media went out on the limb and endorsed the memoir with glowing praise without fact-checking it. Many of these respected journalists have a long history of promoting the life and interests of Wilbert Rideau without fact-checking anything he told them. His charm, wit, and the life story he invented was simply too compelling for them to question. They really didn’t care if what he said was true or not so long as it produced “good copy.”

            Rideau’s “white supporter” said he read In the Place of Justice and believed everything Rideau said in it. If anyone seriously reads the memoir, puts it down, and can honestly say they believe all or most of what Rideau said in it, then I really do have some of that “ocean front property in Arizona” (and free of illegal immigrants) to sell you. In my post Wilbert Rideau: The Spin Doctor, I discussed conversations Rideau claimed to have had with former Angola Warden Ross Maggio. I have impeccable information that those conversations did not take place. And in my post Wilbert Rideau: Angola’s De Facto Warden I discussed conversations Rideau claimed to have had with another former Angola warden, John Whitley. I also have impeccable information that those conversations did not take place as Rideau described them.

            Why hasn’t Wilbert Rideau’s media friends called these two former wardens to get the real story? The same reason the “white supporter” jumped my case about being a closet racist:  I have tried to make Rideau look like the pathological liar he is. It’s easier, and more tidy, to perpetuate a myth than expose the truth—in other words, shoot the messenger because the message he bears is truthful.

            Finally, on the subject of racism let me say this loud and clear where all of Rideau’s supporters can hear: attack my motives for putting up this website on any ground you like (jealously, envy, vindictiveness, etc.), but racism is not a legitimate charge. You can make that charge all you like, but its mud won’t stick.