Partisanship supersedes race: effects of discussant race and partisanship on Whites' willingness to engage in race-specific conversations.

This article examines how race and political partisanship influence White Americans' willingness to engage in imagined conversations about race-specific issues with either White or Black discussants identified as Republicans or Democrats. The study finds that partisanship plays a more significant role than race in shaping White participants' expectations of negative outcomes and their intentions to avoid such conversations. Specifically, White participants anticipated more negative interactions and greater avoidance when imagining discussions with White out-partisans (i.e., White individuals from a different political party), illustrating the "black sheep effect," where undesirable ingroup members are judged more harshly than comparable outgroup members. The research also shows that this effect is moderated by the strength of racial and partisan identification and does not appear among Black participants. These findings suggest that political identity can supersede racial identity in intergroup communication contexts among White Americans, with implications for fostering cross-group dialogue.