which description doesn't belong?

I've recently discovered the National Catholic Reporter online and think they've got some good stuff going on. However, I just came across this snippet in a short piece from the editor's desk:
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"...What I also recall is that in a three-square-block area around our house there were several Jewish households, at least one Jewish-Christian couple, a conservative Baptist, a row of homes where mostly African-Americans lived, assorted Presbyterians and Catholics, and a plumber who studied Zen Buddhism. The high school friends of our older children gave our living room in after-school hours the aura of a junior U.N. gathering..."
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The piece itself is pretty unremarkable, the reason I clipped this snippet was to comment on the inclusion of 'African-American' in a list in which all other descriptions are religious. What does that mean? Is African-American suddenly a religion unto itself? Are we supposed to draw some sort of conclusion that all African-Americans are the same religion? That African-Americans associate their race with a religion, much the same as Jews?

I know the answer to none of these questions but I'm going to email the editor to find out.

Also, I apologize for not posting a better discussion of this but I'm still learning about oppressive language and how it seeps into all aspects of our society. For me, even though this may seem somewhat innocent, it promotes the ideas that that it's okay to describe people grouped by their race/ethnicity. It wouldn't have stood out so much to me except for the fact that NONE of the other religious descriptions included race descriptions AND the African-American description did NOT include a religious description.

I'm sure there's a much better way to make the point than this, but there it is...