Troubling sociolinguistics practice and the coloniality of universalism

The quite contemporary epistemological postures that are critical of the dominance of Euro-modernist knowledge traditions are sometimes guilty of inadvertently perpetuating the very same hegemonies they seek to unsettle. For this reason, the intervention by Nelson Flores and Jonathan Rosa is timely and relevant. In re-assessing the "common sense" assumptions that belie the concept of "raciolinguistics," Flores and Rosa remind us of the need to pitch our conversations with boldness, conceptual clarity, and conviction to avoid essentialisms that tend to hide and reveal—in equal measure—the co-naturalization of language and race and the concomitant discourses they invoke. This short commentary engages their reflections.