Research into ethnoracial identity has highlighted the importance of linked fate among people racialized as Black. Although linked fate recently has been applied to the study of mental health disparities, skin tone has yet to be integrated with conceptualizations of linked fate. The present study utilizes data from the 2020 Collaborative Multi-racial Post-election Survey to study these two types of linked fate and their relations to mental health (n = 3,046 Black respondents). Black linked fate does not vary by visual skin color, whereas skin tone linked fate does. Both types of linked fate associate with greater psychological distress net of identity salience, individual and collective perceived discrimination, and ingroup attitudes. A separate split ballot sample querying racial closeness (n = 1,040) confirms these findings, adjusting for the same ethnoracial identity and discrimination factors. Meanwhile, racial closeness shows a counteracting, protective association with distress.
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