At 10:00 AM CST on Friday, October 8th, the IndigeNerds are discussing Native peoples in pop culture! From fantasy to SY-FY, our panelists, Lee Francis IV, Johnnie Diacon, Johnnie Jae, and Weyodi Oldbear, are going into depth! Be prepared with your questions for this crew of interesting people!
This event will be live-streamed on Facebook Live. Watch online only.
The museum will be open to the public with regular hours, reserve your free timed ticket for entry.
This event will be recorded and archived on our website.
Lee Francis IV
Dr. Lee Francis 4 is the CEO and Founder of Red Planet BnC, an Indigenous Imagination Company, dedicated to unleashing the Indigenous imagination through popular culture, including comic books, graphic novels, games, toys, and collectibles. Originally established as Native Realities in 2015, the company has published the largest assortment of Indigenous-centric comic books in the world. Through Native Realities, Dr. Francis also founded the Indigenous Comic Con in 2016 and opened Red Planet Books and Comics, the only Native comic shop in the world, in 2017, which now serves as the headquarters and distribution center for Native and Indigenous books and other media.
He also serves as the National Director of Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers, a 25-year old organization dedicated to promoting the work and words of Native and Indigenous people throughout the world. He has served in this position for the past fifteen years since the passing of Wordcraft Founder, Lee Francis III, in 2003. During his time, Dr. Francis has supported and mentored more than a hundred writers and storytellers, conducted dozens of school-based workshops, and promoted thousands of written works by Native writers and storytellers.
Dr. Francis is an award-winning performance poet and slam champion. He was a part of the 2006 Albuquerque City Slam Team and the 2008 College National Champion Slam Team. He served as the coach for the 2008 Albuquerque City Slam Team. He has been performing for more than thirty years and has been active in the Albuquerque theater scene for more than a decade after spending a year touring the United States as part of the Repertory Theater of America. He is also a highly regarded storyteller and has performed stories at numerous venues around the U.S and throughout the world.
In 2014, he received his Ph.D. in Education from Texas State University with a focus on Indigenous education systems and Indigenous leadership. He has been published in several peer-reviewed, academic journals over the past decade and his work on Natives in pop culture is highly regarded by universities throughout the United States. As an evaluator, Dr. Francis specializes in Indigenous evaluation methods and has been contracted by numerous local and national Native/Indigenous organizations to conduct system and program evaluations.
About Johnnie Diacon
Johnnie Lee Diacon is an enrolled member of the Mvskoke (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma, the Raprakko Etvlwa (Thlopthlocco Tribal Town), and he is Ecovlke (Deer Clan). He studied the flat style of Indian painting under master artist Ruthe Blalock Jones (Delaware/Shawnee/Peoria) at Bacone College in Muskogee, Oklahoma.
Most of his traditional works are spiritual and ceremonial depictions which are most often done in tempera and gouache on illustration board or watercolor paper, but he has branched out into acrylic on stretched canvas in recent years. Johnnie is a mural artist, which he studied at Bacone College, but still continues to work with smaller canvases. He also graduated from the Institute of American Indian Arts located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he focused on the Contemporary style of Indian Art.
About Johnnie Jae
Johnnie Jae is an Otoe-Missouria and Choctaw rabble-rousing journalist, organizer, creator, and futurist who loves empowering others to chase their passions and create for healing and revolutionary change in the world. She is the founder of A Tribe Called Geek, an award-winning media platform for Indigenous Geek Culture and STEM, and #Indigenerds4Hope, a suicide prevention initiative designed to educate, encourage, and empower Native youth. Jae is a co-founder of Not Your Mascots and LiveIndigenousOK. She is a member of the Women Warriors Work Collective and served as a co-chair for the March for Racial Justice. She leads numerous workshops that address Mental Health and Suicide in Indian Country, Native Mascots & Stereotypes, Indigenous Representation & Journalism, Indigenous STEM & Tech, and the Utilization of Social & Digital media for Business and Activism. Her ability to seamlessly shift from humor and pop culture to advocacy and business has made her a much-sought-after speaker, panelist, and commentator.
About Weyodi Oldbear
Weyodi OldBear was born on the shores of Long Island Sound among her father’s people but raised among her mother’s people, The Comanche Nation of Oklahoma, where she is an enrolled voting citizen. After the death of her grandparents in 2013 and 2014 she left Oklahoma for other parts of traditional Comanche territory. She’s written 4 novels, hundreds of poems, numerous speculative fiction and science fiction short stories in addition to a historical play about her great-great grandparents Weckeah OldBear and Quanah Parker, and is one of the principal writers for the groundbreaking Indigenous Futurist tabletop Role Playing Game Coyote&Crow. In 2018 she was awarded the Imagining Indigenous Futurisms prize for her story “Red Lessons”. Weyodi reckons her lifelong focus on speculative fiction is the result of a childhood surrounded by elderly Comanches with a lively interest in both the past and the future as well as a distinctly non-mainstream world view. Today Weyodi lives in Albuquerque, heading her large extended household, on the traditional nomadic route of her band.