Hypermimetic Police Violence: Racist Somatechnics in the Case of Rayshard Brooks

Abstract

Extending the new field of mimetic studies to the racist somatechnics of police violence against minorities in the United States, this article focuses on the specific case of the police murder of Rayshard Brooks in 2020 (Atlanta, Georgia) to account for the complex interplay of somatic, technical, and mimetic factors that triggered his murder. I argue that this exemplary case calls for a diagnostic of the patho(-)logical vortex of contagious violence that entangles racist triggers, unconscious bodily actions and reactions, as well as the agentic power of guns qua technical ‘actants.’ While this hypermimetic spiral of violence escapes conscious control, it generates unconscious pathologies internal to racist violence in general and to the somatechnics of police violence in particular.