Meet Nneka Julia
AmplifyI am so excited to share this month’s Amplify with you guys! I got the opportunity to speak with Nneka, a creative who is cultivating community through connection. She is an amazingly talented photographer, writer, and podcast host. Last year, she launched a 100 Day Challenge on Instagram that caught mine and my team’s attention. In the challenge, she chooses a question submitted by a follower and sends her response to them in the form of a handwritten letter. My team and I have been really inspired by her efforts to create conversation and community.
Nneka shares with us how she’s able to maintain a human connection in the digital world, what inspires her to create, and how she feels about the notion of balance. This conversation was a fun one to have and I can’t wait for you guys to read it, meet Nneka, and be inspired by her too!
xx,
M
Our team has been closely following your 100 Day Challenge on Instagram. Can you share a little about why you started the challenge and what it’s meant to you? Last year, it felt like we were reacting to something every single day. Everybody had experienced this burnout towards the end of last year and social media began to feel more like a machine than it ever has. I felt like I was just logging on, and I didn’t feel like I was making a decision. I remember just sitting with the thought of how do I engage online in a meaningful way? How do I slow it down and get back in control of the stuff that I’m sharing? How do I have a slow exchange with others on a platform that forces us to have quick and often times shallow exchanges with each other? So I began really diving into certain questions and focusing on having this exchange with people offline that is going to take days, if not weeks. It was really all about trying to reclaim that slow exchange that I feel we’ve lost in many ways.
“How do I have a slow exchange with others on a platform that forces us to have quick and often times shallow exchanges with each other?”
What inspires you most to create? It’s always been people. Even when I look back on my journey as a photographer, there has always been some human element. Everybody is a walking universe. If I encounter you and I ask you a few questions, I’m now stepping into your world. That to me is just endlessly fascinating.
What is your hope for 2021? If 2020 didn’t show us that we have to be able to claim a second, a moment, or a small slice of the day then it was a waste. You know, you don’t have to run every day, but you can walk, and you can crawl if you can’t walk. So for me, what I hope 2021 brings is momentum. I know it’s not going to be fast every single day, but whatever it is that I’m working on, I want to crawl towards that thing with intention.
What’s something you feel you learned about yourself during the last year? That I’m loved — by myself and other people. There’s a lot of loneliness going on in the world right now. To get a phone call or a text from a friend, from a family member, from a stranger just saying hello is really nice. I hope everyone feels that way.
How are you feeling? As a woman and a creator, how have you found yourself coping with everything that has happened the last year? I feel extremely hopeful and cautiously optimistic. What the last year has shown me is that balance is a bit of an illusion. I think sometimes we try to balance work and life as if both aren’t intertwined. I’ve run away from the idea of balance and really come to a point of harmony. Whether I’m doing photography, podcasting, or writing, I honestly ask myself, “are these things in harmony with each other or with my life?” I’m past trying to balance one with the other. I’m hopeful that I can find that harmony in my life, and I’m hopeful for others to find that as well.
“I think sometimes we try to balance work and life as if both aren’t intertwined.”
How do you approach the topic of racism with your friends, family & peers? To see me, you have to actually acknowledge the fact that I am a Black woman. I’m not only a Black woman. I am also ethnically a Cambodian woman and a Nigerian woman, but I identify as a Black woman in all spaces. With my family members, it’s an interesting thing. Where my father comes from, the majority of people are Black so you aren’t necessarily dealing with racism. Instead, you’re dealing with tribalism. In coming to America, there is this weird distinction between being an African and being Black. Whereas, I was raised in America as not only a Black American but also these ethnic things so there are actually four identities. So when approaching the topic of race, it depends on who I’m talking to, but I try to pull from history. A lot of people don’t want to acknowledge the bloody history that America has. And not just white America per se, but what colonization as a whole has done to the collective consciousness. When you start talking about that, I think people are more willing to have a more honest conversation. If someone isn’t willing to have that conversation, I’ve realized there’s little I can do to change their mind. The real revolution is individual.
“To see me, you have to actually acknowledge the fact that I am a Black woman. I’m not only a Black woman. I am also ethnically a Cambodian woman and a Nigerian woman, but I identify as a Black woman in all spaces.”
What do you wish more people understood about racism? I wish they understood its history, and that sometimes it’s not a choice. I think that people stumble upon this thought, “I’m not racist”. As if it was a conscious choice and not their upbringing. Instead, I wish people reflected and thought, “I did not know that this was being taught to me so when I encounter this situation I am wrong. I did not know I was wrong, but now I can choose to be better”. I wish that people would stop denying that racism and white supremacy exist, and start questioning how they’ve benefitted from it. I wish more people understood that racism wears many cloaks. It is not just what we see in movies or in the media. It’s much more covert and insidious. It doesn’t have to be this big hate crime for you to partake in white supremacy or racist trains of thought or behavior.
I also wish people understood that there is room for grace in these conversations. Social media can make you think there is no grace in the world. There’s much more grace and much more room for that conversation when you demonstrate a willingness to have hard conversations.
32 responses to “Meet Nneka Julia”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Nneka shares with us how she’s able to maintain a human connection in the digital world, what inspires her to create, and how she feels about the notion of balance. This conversation was a fun one to have and I can’t wait for you guys to read it, meet Nneka, and be inspired by her too!
This article is very good from content to images, hope in the future you can share more with everyone. Thank you and respect you very much.
You look great. 🙂 Just be yourself because you are beautiful.
very nice post blind person for kids
Thanks for sharing your precious time to create this post, It so informative and the content makes the post more interesting. really appreciated.
Thanks for inspiring us with your post. Your words are so inspirational and motivate me so much. I am feeling so bad when people cerise me for my black skin tone. I was searching for online dissertation help while looking for it https://www.dissertation-service.org/ I found this site. I was reading reviews of this site then I see your post. Your post motivates me so much I can’t stop myself from commenting on it. Thanks for sharing this amazing post.
I have read your article; it is very instructive and valuable to me. I admire the valuable information you offer in your articles. Thanks for posting it.
I learned absolutely everything about my question when I read this post, thanks to the author for the detailed description. I wrote my review on the site you can go in and read. Thank you very much for your attention and your time.
Thanks for your helpful information. I have been struggling to find many questions about this issue. I will follow you!
Hello, thank you very much for your interesting opinion on this matter. rupdf I think I’ll really get down to it this time!
I am very happy to read your post. I have all the information I am looking for and I would love to post a comment saying “Your content is amazing”
Nneka discusses how she keeps a human connection in the digital world, what drives her to create, and how she views the concept of balance. I can’t wait for you to read it, meet Nneka, and be inspired by her as well!
We got amazing facts from your article, which are inspiring. We are providing Click Here Interior Painting Services in Suwanee, and surrounding areas.
I see different pictures of Nneka Julia. All the pictures are so beautiful. Thank you for sharing interesting post with us. Further, The commercial cleaning companies Dallas are the backbone of the commercial industry. They provide a wide range of commercial cleaning services to various businesses, from small to large.
It’s always a tough task to find a top-quality sample of a paper on accounting. However, these best accounting essay examples helped me a lot.
Nice
I hope this post will like you all! Becouse its amaizing! Check this beautiful serivce for essyaa na dhomwrok adn yu will see how good it is! Good luc kand have fun my friedn! Love it!
Omnis id culpa in voluptatem Magni totam beatae voluptatibus odio qui quo perspiciatis quisquam quia totam voluptates labore thanks
Great article it’s really informative and creative which helps us to post new updates. it’s really worth it. Thanks a lot. If you have more time, please visit:
Your article is really good and I was intrigued by it. It gives me a lot of useful knowledge and i thank you very much for that.
y fellow SEO team. This is one of the most unique and informative source that i have visited today. You should be recommended of being a good influencer already as i find this so inspirational to my projects. Thanks dude เล่นบาคาร่า
really Awesome site. Everyone wants to know the secret of your webmaster. People like me ask and seek for every discussion to get some ideas and inspiration. This could be a big hit for me as a new researcher. Keep me in touch. Have a great day. วิธีสมัครบาคาร่า
ideas To look on beyond the experience and work of others just to have a justification of your outcome. Great day dude. เกมสล็อต
Nneka is a smart and talented girl, I always follow and study her steps.
Blooket is a learning platform that is built in a gamified way. This combines quiz-style questions and answers with fun skill games that
This is such awesome content i got to read after lot of time. Its so interesting as well as informative. I am sure everyone who read it got a lot to learn from it.Naruto Akatsuki Puffer Jacket
The official Steam page for the game states the following when explaining the game: “ARC Raiders is a cooperative third-person shooter where you and your squad.
Nice post.
Such an inspiring blog! Her passion and dedication to her work are truly remarkable. It’s not every day you come across someone so talented and genuine. Looking forward to seeing more of her amazing contributions!
Dinosaur Game is an intriguing game that offers the convenience of being playable anytime, anywhere, even without an internet connection
We really value your insights. I appreciate you being a source of inspiration for me.
Before selecting an essay writing service, students should conduct detailed research on the market. Different writing agencies https://www.lunwenhelp.com/essay-daixie/ may have significant variations in their pricing, which are closely related to factors such as the agency’s scale, the professional level of the writing team, and the service content.