Exponential

“You’re only two percent African,” he smirks.

“2%?!,” I reply, astonished. “I’m pretty sure the fact that both of my parents are from Rwanda makes me 100 percent African, heritage-wise. Citizenship-wise, I was born and raised in the States so that’s as American as I need to be.”

He just shrugs my reply away in dismissal. I’ve never been to Africa, I don’t speak any African language, so I might as well not be African. My African name, African parents, my love of African food with spices that put you in a state of hot, warm, flavorful bliss—none of that matters. I sound American, I think American, I see, taste, smell, feel American.

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“You’re African American, right?” she asks, peering over her shoulder as she drives.

I stutter, confused on how to answer this innocent question. I frantically find the words I need to explain who and what I am.

“Well, I was born and raised in the States,” I start. “But both my parents are from Africa.”

She begins to laugh. “Well, then you are African American.”

I guess in one sense she’s right. I’m the literal definition of “African American.” African and American. But race is not a literal thing; it’s very far from literal, in fact.

My mother became an American citizen before I was born. I think the process was quicker for her because she came to the U.S. as a refugee. But my dad, who came to the U.S. to work as an electrical engineer, didn’t get his citizenship until I was in middle school.

My parents are not African American. They would never call themselves African American. I don’t believe they would even consider themselves “African and American.” My parents sound, my parents think, my parents see, taste, feel African. They are African through and through.

When you have someone whose parents are African—but have American citizenship—and who was born in America, aren’t they African American?

No.

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You’re confused.

I understand. I’ve had a lifetime to do the algebra. You’ve only had a few minutes, but don’t be too hard on yourself. As I hope I’ve explained above, many people get the math wrong.

He was wrong. You don’t divide “African parents” by “lifetime in America.” Either way, the answer is not 2 percent. “African parents” divided by “lifetime in America” is about 50 percent. But, again, that math is incorrect and I’m not really sure what that’s supposed to equate to.

She was wrong. The two terms aren’t additive. Repeat after me, “African plus American does not equal African American.” Remember that algebraic inequality! She was more correct than he was. She just forgot the way you calculate how African an American is. The African diaspora is an exponential equation: you take e to the negative power of “generations out of Africa.” This is how you write it: .

I am very African. I am e-1 African. Someone whose ancestors came from Africa in chains is e-6 African or less. E-6 is a pretty small number.

That may sound harsh and undeserving, but race can be harsh and undeserving. Race is confusing and race is illogical because people are confusing and people are illogical.

The bottom line is, you take “African parents” and you mush it all up with “born in America” and you get "not quite African, not quite American." The best way to describe it is African and American, but that doesn’t quite fit either.

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She lets me rant and then gently asks, “Then what do you identify with being the most?”

“I guess I identify the most with being ‘first generation American.’”

And lucky. I identify with being very lucky.