The election of Donald J Trump and the subsequent racialized backlash and excavation of white nationalist rhetoric and actions of electeds and regular citizens across the country serve as a reminder as to how particular segments of the in-group will behave when they perceive that their once-dominant status is threatened. In her thorough work, Carter provides an overview of African American public opinion, racial hierarchies, immigration, and conflicted nativism in order to answer the larger question: how does white supremacy permeate various facets of American society, public opinion, and political relationships? Carter then presents her own framework in three connected parts in order to address: (1) black public opinion toward immigration and the idea of conflicted nativism, (2) a historical view of how blacks view the aspects of immigration as a political strategy, and (3) how collective memory informs black public opinion. Her findings illustrate black attitudes that are actually more favorable to immigrant groups than to other whites. Carter ascertains that it is white supremacy, not immigration, which serves as a more salient issue for blacks.

Not only does American While Black provide robust theoretical analyses pertaining to African American public opinion, it also empirically addresses issues and groups who still seem to reside on the fringes of the discipline. Some of the greatest strengths of Carter's text are its overview of African American public opinion pertaining to immigration, detailed historical analysis of black attitudes toward immigration, personal interviews which connect history to contemporary black opinions, and the use of survey data to test her claims. Because of these inclusions, this book is of use to scholars who are interested in detailed empirical data, substantive policy questions, and a historical analysis and interpretation of immigration.

Carter argues that none of the previous theories adequately explain how questions pertaining to how blacks and their perceptions toward immigration properly factor in a complete understanding of white supremacy. In defining her construct of conflicted nativism, she argues that, “blacks view immigration through the lens of the black/white racial paradigm and are ambivalent with respect to immigration…Conflicted nativism comes from a sensibility that immigration will potentially harm black progress, but immigration should not be restricted, because white supremacy, not immigration, is what ultimately harms black social mobility” (p. 23). While defining her ideas pertaining to conflicted nativism, Carter lays out how blacks in her data express persistent feelings of exclusion, especially in the face of increased immigration. In a nation often defined by dichotomous black/white relations, Carter asserts that coalition and competition theories often fail to assess the nuance and complexities of black attitudes and the historic realities blacks have faced with new immigrant groups.

Carter also raises several interesting historical debates pertaining to blacks and citizenship throughout the text. In Ch 3: Emigrants, Immigrants, and Refugees, the author engages in a historic analysis involving primary sources, Supreme Court cases, and a larger framing of “Americanness” in order to ascertain various levels of inclusion into the polity for black groups. As various debates surrounding Latinx populations, both documented and undocumented, continue to divide communities (and political parties), we must continue to contextualize and historicize the persistent effects of the black–white paradigm in the twenty-first century and allow our analyses to extend to groups who are directly affected by white supremacist practices, beliefs, and potential threats to democratic rights and processes. In doing so, we will be able to more clearly measure the future attitudes of groups as the definitions of citizenship continue to evolve.

American While Black is a timely book that should be mandatory reading for any scholar interested in race, public opinion, and immigration in American politics. Carter concludes that black attitudes toward immigration are not solely rooted in attitudes toward Latinx groups, but that public opinion is shaped by a multitude of forces, primarily the persistence of white supremacy, past and present. It is not necessarily the conclusion that makes American While Black such an influential text; it is the processes the author uses to unfold and support her ultimate conclusion which make it such a useful and critical body of work.