Hello World....

My name is Terry "T.D." Rucker. I am a criminal. I say this, not because I go out into the world and commit crime as a way of life. I say it because regardless of what I do in the world I will always be considered, a criminal. Having made mistakes in the past that resulted in criminal charges and subsequent criminal pleas ranging from Armed Robbery to Distribution of a Controlled Substance, I will forever be considered a criminal.

It doesn't matter that I am now a father, who takes care of a beautiful little girl named Isabella Destiny Rucker who turned one on February 28th, 2018. It doesn't matter that I started my own business about 3 years ago by pushing a lawn mower door to door while living at my mother's house, because I had no car. It doesn't matter that I now put people to work for me. It doesn't matter that I'm an active community organizer. It doesn't matter that I pay my bills, support my wife, have a collection of poetry self-published. It doesn't matter that I use to suffer daily from substance use disorder and have overcome it for several years running. It doesn't matter that I'm half white.What does seem to matter is that the system, with all of its fallibility, has been designed to keep people disenfranchised. Mistakes are not forgotten for those of us who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, and I, my friends, have been brought up, conditioned, and programmed to remain at the bottom.

I've relatively well traveled, as far as the United States is concerned, having been enrolled into 25 different schools by the time I dropped out of tenth grade. I now have a few years of college education and my residency was in the Missouri Department of Corrections for seven out of ten years. There was a lot of lessons to be learned in such a place and I assure you, I learned most of them.

I have gotten over most of my past mistakes, and have emerged as a man who loves and cares for his family, who believes in individualism, anarchism, the free markets, and my fellow human. I often wonder why the world is as it is. Why are there so many people dying as a result of wars, poverty, and hunger. I consider the inequality that exist based on every aspect of life, from race, class, and caste systems both seen and unseen. Slowly I've come to a realization that the world is this way through a combination of social engineering, progression, and evolution. It has been designed with a foundation of a perceived racial superiority, political policies put in place meant to hold marginalized and poor people back like redlining, Jim Crow, and the Missouri Compromise (3/5 vote). As time and policies have continued to grow upon foundations like these I realize that there isn't a lot I can do in this day and age. However, together we can change the world. I work with others in my community to make our environment a little better because a little progress toward a better world is better than zero progress in a backwards world.

These brain droppings are a part of the foundation for which my world view and subsequent actions, beliefs, and activities are based. This is a little bit about me. A simple introduction to me and what I will be bringing to this platform on the edge of the social media revolution.