{"id":112913,"date":"2026-07-02T11:30:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/112913\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T11:30:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:30:08","slug":"opinion-black-hair-identity-and-policing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/112913\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Black hair, identity and policing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Black hair has always been an important assertion of identity. Natural hairstyles such as the Afro became a symbol of Black Power. Locs worn by Rastafarians represent their resistance to oppression. So we find ourselves asking: What lies behind the allegations of Montreal police officers cutting the hair of Black men to keep as \u201ctrophies\u201d?<\/p>\n

This month, complaints and internal information prompted an investigation into reports of racist and discriminatory conduct<\/a> by officers with the Service de Police de la Ville de Montr\u00e9al (SPVM) assigned to Station 39 in Montreal North. All told, 16 officers have been implicated. Two were suspended and became the subject of criminal investigations, while the 14 others have been removed from public-facing duties.<\/p>\n

Allegations include familiar patterns of racial profiling or racist remarks toward Black and Arab residents, as well as acutely hostile acts such as the cutting of locs from Black men and the retention of those hair remnants as trophies. Chief of police Fady Dagher<\/a>, Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada<\/a> and Domestic Security Minister Ian Lafreni\u00e8re<\/a> described the alleged conduct as \u201ccompletely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Anti-policeMarchers take to the streets of Montreal North after this month\u2019s reports of alleged racist conduct by police. John Mahoney \/ Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n

Community organizations and activists argue that the revelations confirm the long-standing complaints of institutional anti-Black racism<\/a> embedded in the policing of Montreal North (home to one of largest communities of Haitians in Canada) and call for police accountability and institutional reform.<\/p>\n

Police discipline and criminal responsibility are important issues, but the specific alleged behaviour in this case begs the question: What does it mean when state agents sever and preserve parts of Black men\u2019s bodies as trophies? <\/p>\n

When situated within broader histories of racial domination, the gravity of such practices cannot be overstated. Official condemnations describing them as \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d ring hollow. To our knowledge, at the time of writing, neither senior political officials nor the SPVM have publicly described the cutting and keeping of Black men\u2019s locs as \u201cracial terror,\u201d \u201csymbolic mutilation,\u201d or a \u201chate crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historically, there have been numerous instances where state agents, colonizers and racial mobs have removed and preserved human remains (such as hair, scalps, ears, teeth, bones, skulls and skin) as trophies. Across diverse contexts, these practices have been interpreted as rituals of dehumanization and symbolic possession, as opposed to random acts of cruelty. <\/p>\n

In the book Hair Story<\/a>, authors Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps write \u201cthe shaved head was the first step the Europeans took to erase the slaves\u2019 culture and alter the relationship between the African and his or her hair \u2026 (it) stripped them of a lifeline to their home and a connection to their people. Their language was taken away and they were unable to identify with others from their tribe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue, therefore, is not merely that hair was cut. Rather, locs are powerful systems of signification, and any reckoning with these acts must centre what they signify socially, culturally, politically and spiritually for many Black people. <\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s Picks\t<\/p>\n

Black hair is a site where race, power, identity, gender and politics intersect. Locs have often signalled racial pride, anti-racist consciousness and solidarity with broader Black struggles. Locs are also embodiments of distinct religious and spiritual beliefs. In Rastafarian tradition, they symbolize connection to Jah (the Almighty), Pan-Africanism and overall resistance to colonial domination (i.e., \u201cBabylon\u201d).<\/p>\n

Moreover, there is a substantial body of work that examines white curiosity, fetishization and tactile entitlement to Black bodies through hair. From academics like Ingrid Banks, Kobena Mercer and Maxine Leeds Craig to entertainers (Solange\u2019s song Don\u2019t Touch My Hair), many have described the contradictory position that Black hair occupies in Western society. Both fascinating and fetishized, Black hair becomes a site where racial meanings are projected and contested.<\/p>\n

Yet in all the debates over Montreal policing, there is a haunting silence. We call for this investigation to take seriously such hateful practices as symptoms of persistent colonial oppression.<\/p>\n

Oceane Jasor is a professor of sociology and Nalini Mohabir is a professor of geography, both at Concordia University. Ronald Cummings is a professor of cultural studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. The three are part of the Protests and Pedagogy Collective<\/a>, which began in 2019 as an effort to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Sir George Williams (now Concordia) student occupation in 1969, and the wider context of anti-Black racism in Montreal. The collective is a group of academics and activists with expertise in Black, African and Caribbean studies in Quebec and Ontario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Black hair has always been an important assertion of identity. Natural hairstyles such as the Afro became a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[50,12905,6417,784],"class_list":["post-112913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-montreal","tag-service-de-police-de-la-ville-de-montreal-spvm","tag-social-issues","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}