ST PAUL, Minn. — At Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, back in 2015, a human resources major signed up for a couple of ethics and gender studies classes "just to fill up [her] time," and learned to use her voice. Today, Nadia Mohamed is mayor of St. Louis Park.
"This idea of we need to speak out, we need to make space for ourselves," Mayor Mohamed said.
She's the first Somali-American mayor not just in Minnesota but in the nation. Now three months into the job, she's back on campus for a discussion on women of color in leadership.
The panel also included Kenya McKnight Ahad, founder and CEO of Black Women's Wealth Alliance.
The executive said, "They look at you and say, 'Who are you?' And I go, 'Who am I not?'"
Mya Williamson once got a grant from McKnight Ahad. She and her mom, Briana Williamson, sell hair care products and children's books through their business, Love My Natural.
"'Stay you' means stay the way you are," Mya Williamson said. "Don't let anybody change the way you are. You will always be you, and you will stay you for the rest of your life."
At one point, the young girl had a store in Mall of America, where her parents were employees.
"Your hair is beautiful, you just need a little bit of styling oil and everything everything will be all right," she said, making the crowd laugh.
The university's Multicultural, American Indian and Retention Services hosted the talk and says it's meant to celebrate those successfully navigating systems not created for people of color or women.
"According to Pew Research, 5% of women are CEOs of fortune 500 companies, 17% are board members," Dean of Students Maya Sullivan said. "These numbers are significantly lower for women of color … Women of color held 14% of managerial positions and white women held 27%."
The panelists help put a face to the statistics. They shared challenges in addition to the good.
"If someone comes in, they're like, 'Oh my gosh, you're so strong. How do you [do that],' I want you to put 'strong' in your back pocket because to me at this point, that's not really a compliment if I've had to be that way in these spaces," Briana Williamson said. "So when I get into melanin recessive spaces, right? I think that the first thing is for me is to get rid of that imposter syndrome, right, that says I don't belong here."
McKnight Ahad says she's faced sexism and classism, and that many people have minimized her career.
"Now more so in my role as an executive leader is competitiveness and disrespect from other Black women particularly, but other women," she said. "They want to come to me and say, 'Oh, we're all business owners.' I'm not just a business owner … I support business owners while being one."
Mohamed recalled a time growing up in the U.S. when she says a racist a man accosted her mother at a restaurant, telling her in front of the children to "go back" and that he would set her on fire. Mohamed says her father didn't say anything back although she wanted him to do so.
"My father, who is an African man, he's a Somali man, they want to be protective and they are tasked to be the 'man of the house,'" the mayor said. "In that moment, I couldn't have imagined how it felt for him to not be able to even do anything. He literally had to pull my mom away and I'm yelling at this guy with my limited English. I'm like 12 years old … and I'm fuming, I'm angry. I'm like, 'Why aren't you doing anything? Why aren't you saying anything? And so we go back into the car and he's like, 'It's just not even worth it.'"
"I still talk to my dad about that. To him, it was a matter of survival, yes, but it was a matter of, 'This is not my country. They're telling me this is not my country,' and so I'm like, 'You pay taxes. You're an American citizen,'" Mohamed continued. "I have to keep the door open for others. I have to make sure that people are coming in after me."