2/5/2025 SAGE hosts ‘Face of hate’ at howell theater, Former white supremacist tells Howell audience about the active white SUPREMACY movement in livingston co.

A former white supremacist and KKK leader from Livingston County who turned away from extremism was present Thursday night in Howell to answer questions following the U.S. theater premier of a documentary detailing his journey.  “Face of Hate” tells the story of Jasen Barker, who made headlines when he and a cousin were sentenced to prison after assaulting a Black Michigan State Police trooper at a bar in Brighton in 2001. 

The film, made by Danish journalist Steffen Hou, begins with Barker deep into white supremacy and espousing pro-Nazi ideology, but then shows him  questioning those beliefs, and eventually seeking redemption and forgiveness from his children after accepting the pain his white supremacy had caused.

Following the film’s screening, which was hosted by Stand Against Extremism Livingston County (SAGE) at the Historic Howell Theater, Barker joined a panel discussion about his story and its relation to the rise in extremism being seen across the country.

“I was a lost soul and I didn’t know how to deal with things. I didn’t know how to express myself, and I was just hurting really bad,” Barker told the audience about his former life.

Barker described how he was indoctrinated into hate groups, who he says found ways to meet his psychological needs and provide a family-like stability that was missing in his life.

“They like to twist and use it when they can, and manipulate an issue. I didn’t understand what I do now,” he said. “They talk to you, they spend time with you, they listen to what your interests are, what bothers you, and it’s all just manipulation.”

Dr. David Hayes, a forensic psychologist who served as the panel’s moderator, said the kind of manipulation Barker talked about is a key element extremist groups use to recruit people to their cause.

“People filled with hate, like people with white supremacist groups, are willing to do some terrible and awful things, and it comes from the basis of feeling maligned, being forgotten. And that anger that built up from being forgotten translates itself into having to find the appropriate group that you can fit into,” he said. . .

“We talk about big societal change and ask, ‘How can we change our culture? How can we change our neighborhood and our community?’ Really, the very, very hard truth about that is that as a group we can’t. We can’t change groups of people, but we can change a person,” said Hayes.” Link to full article