In the wake of the reaction to Imus’s ignorant ravings, we shouldn’t be surprised that some Americans P-O’d about open borders and Hispanic racial chauvinism have decided that “gringo” is an offensive racial epithet, as this story describes. As I told the reporter, my own reaction to hearing the word “gringo” used in a non-ironic way is to look around for Speedy Gonzalez. But those who celebrate immigration as a social engineering tool to turn whites into a minority shouldn’t be surprised if whites (at least the loud-mouths among them) start adopting the conventions of a minority. Given the unique experience of blacks in our history, we have rightly made taboo what was once the casual epithet for them. But otherwise, people need to grow up a little. Any time different groups of people live in close proximity, they’re going to have names for each other, some less derogatory, some more. For instance, Italians couldn’t use their word for “black” in referring to Black Americans without being understood, so they hit upon “mulignane” (Neapolitan for eggplant). Armenians had the same problem when discussing Italians, so they called them “khmor-oudogh” — dough-eaters. Here’s a whole list of such terms. Anyone who knows any epithets for Armenians, please let me know, because I’ve been disappointed at the lack of any good ones. And if you’re in D.C., you can tell me the epithets in person, since I’m going to try to make the happy hour at Dubliners.