My Jim Crow Theory

When living or traveling in the third-world it is often hard to grasp the significance of the poverty and despair one frequently witnesses. Often we seek to understand these foreign elements through exhibiting some form of compassion, usually manifested in the overly empathetic and not necessarily crystallizing mantra ‘put yourself in their shoes’. I tried that and it didn’t work. Often the person I was staring at had no shoes for me to put my feet in - nor would I want to had they. I tried, sometimes even earnestly, to give a shit about the social decay that I so often was a part of, if not responsible for. Instead, I found a new way of appreciating the significance of social decay. I now look at the size of the crows that live in the city. For example, yesterday I saw a crow the size of a my bed-side table. Had I weighed it, which I momentarily contemplated, it would’ve tipped the scales at nearly 30 lbs.
The degree to which crows, specifically, and flying objects in general, are disproportionately sized to the environment which they live, is the key factor I now use in assessing the general degree of social decay in specific regions. I watched this horrific flying beast feast on a heaping pile of burning rubbish for nearly an hour. It was masterful in its environment: meticulously discarding plastic in one pile while sifting deftly through the flaming feces in the other. This crow knew how to scavenge. Similar to the products of Beethoven’s brown study in squalor or Michelangelo’s maniacal masterpieces in suspension, this crow was clearly master of its domain, unfettered by anything. Though its domain was flaming asshole shit and, quite possibly, bird flu, it was undeterred in its pursuit of excellence. But, much the same as its prodigal predecessors, this crow was too good for its own well-being: it had become enormous and could not fly, so it simply sat there waiting to digest. Such is the case with many crows in Africa, the social decay (measured here in terms of the lack of sanitary systems, poor sewage mechanisms and number of burning piles of crap) and the inevitable run-off it creates, offers up feasts so plentiful and so accessible, the purpose of flying is deemed useful only when seeking one’s next feast. Gradually their wings become smaller and their mass greater. Thus, the crows evolve, as any animal does, to suit its environment. It is the endearing logic of Darwinism, only its methodology in this case is used as a means to analyze a different end: how shitty a place actually is. This is why crows in Kenya, on average, resemble medium-sized dogs; in DRC their enormous plumage is used as roofing for huts and in Nigeria I’ve heard of people mistakenly boarding them thinking they're small passenger aircrafts. It is no wonder, then, that the shittier the place, the huger the fucking crow.