What is with people referring the word Creole as a race?

Answer 1

Good question, and you ask it with the measure of skepticism it deserves. Race, particularly in the Americas, is a touchy, complex, sometimes idiotic notion. I've known people as black as night and as pale as snow call themselves Panamanian, Puerto Rican, Dominican, etc. Those are nationalities, not races, but people say it nonetheless. Many southerners "identify" themselves as Creole, and consider it a racial demarcation, when in fact, it is not. Creole is a much more a cultural distinction than a racial one. It is, sadly, a legacy of a time when it would benefit a person, whose phenotype (appearance) allowed him to "pass" as something other than black. That's not an indictment, it's just a fact. Race is a construct, and the sooner human beings accept that, the better off we will all be.

Answer 2

Here are definitions showing the rationality of calling Creole a race. Whether it appears on the census list or not, it seems to fit right in. ETHNIC is, in examination, quite different when closely compared to race. Notice the mixing involved. This does not mean a simple, geographically isolated group is a race. Manhattan is an island, do the residents constitute a Manhattanite race? Of course not.

Race:
5. a. Biology :
An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits.

Creole:
2. a. A person descended from or culturally related to the original French settlers of the southern United States, especially Louisiana.
....b. The French dialect spoken by these people.
3. A person descended from or culturally related to the Spanish and Portuguese settlers of the Gulf States.
4. Often "creole" A person of mixed Black and European ancestry who speaks a creolized language, especially one based on French or Spanish

Answer 3

I'm Creole...i speak it as well...in Belize it is race. Most of us are Creole. that just means mixed.alot of different ethnicities. it's a race.

Answer 4

it may well be a race but always considered it a venue of culinary style ... yum