A crowd outside the historic Gracie Mansion gathered for one purpose: to protest New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. But amid the pro-Israel signs, speeches and political grievances, another message rang out.
“Go back to Uganda,” demonstrators yelled.
This one remark quickly turned into roaring chants captured in videos posted online. Calls to “deport” the mayor immediately drew condemnation from supporters and civil rights advocates, who said the rhetoric echoed some of the oldest anti-immigrant and racist tropes in American politics.
For Mamdani–the city’s first Muslim mayor, who was born in Uganda and immigrated to the States as a child–the comments reflect a broader political climate that he told The Root often goes too far.
“I think that some of the language that we heard at that protest — telling me to go back to Uganda, sneering me as the first Muslim mayor of New York City with words and descriptions that I’d rather not repeat — it showcases how some of this opposition is not a criticism of policy,” Mamdani said. “It is a criticism of identity. It is a criticism of existence.”
For Mamdani’s supporters, he represents a bridge between cultures and a promising future. On the other side, critics argue his tenure poses a threat not just to the city of New York, but to American democracy itself.
Even before taking office in January, Mamdani faced heavy criticism amid heightened tensions surrounding the political fallout from the Israel-Hamas war on top of a long history of Islamophobia caused by constant conflicts between the United States and other countries in the Middle East.
The mayor has faced sustained opposition from some pro-Israel activists, who accuse him of failing to adequately confront antisemitism and extremism. Protest organizers said the rally was intended to hold Mamdani accountable for what they view as inadequate leadership on those issues.
But while that’s how the protest started, that’s certainly not how it ended. While the mayor said he welcomes diverse viewpoints, he drew a sharp distinction between fair political pushback and the rhetoric leveled against him outside Gracie Mansion. “Any New Yorker should be able to have their opinion on our administration or on anything, frankly, that pertains to life across these five boroughs,” he began. “I don’t begrudge 8.5 million people from having 8.5 million opinions…”
In one video shared on social media, demonstrators can be heard chanting “deport terror advocates.” Critics argued that the chants echoed long-standing anti-immigrant and racist attacks frequently directed at immigrants and people of color. Specifically, the phrase “go back to Africa” has historically been used to question the belonging of Black Americans and African immigrants. Now, it seems the divisive rhetoric has found another target: Mayor Mamdani.
The controversy underscores the increasingly personal and identity-focused nature of political demonstrations surrounding the ongoing impact of both the Israel-Palestine conflict and war with Iran, where disputes over policy and public safety have frequently crossed paths with questions of religion, ethnicity and immigration.
Still, the mayor said he hopes New York can model a different approach to political disagreement.
“What we want to build in this city is a city where dissent is encouraged and difference is celebrated,” Mamdani continued. “And that’s something that, for many New Yorkers, is second nature, having grown up across these beautiful five boroughs, but we still see that it is far too absent from a lot of our political discourse.”
