An American 'Missionary' Called a Ugandan Man a Monkey

An American man who spent months building a following on TikTok by presenting himself as a Christian missionary living among Ugandan children has left the country in a hurry, days after a Ugandan content creator exposed a pattern of racist comments and reactions attached to his social media accounts. What began as an online exposé has since raised uncomfortable, unresolved questions about how African nations police foreign visitors who work closely with children under the cover of religious charity.

How It Started

The man, who identifies himself online as Mac Miller and claims to be 21 years old, had been living in Lweza in Uganda's Mukono district since around March, building a TikTok following of more than 27,500 people through videos showing him preaching, learning Luganda, and spending time with a group of young Ugandan boys, teaching them football and boxing and taking them for meals and films. Before settling in Uganda, his content had documented him hitchhiking across the United States and travelling through parts of Asia.

The controversy broke on 3 September, when Ugandan content creator Eric Bryanstone published screenshots he said showed Miller liking and reacting to racist posts and comments on his personal accounts. One screenshot showed Miller liking a racist meme attached to a video of white women dancing with Black friends. Another showed him liking a comment reading, "What's your biggest red flag? Being brown." A further comment claiming white people were "better than Africans" drew a salute emoji reaction from Miller's account, according to the screenshots. A separate video, since deleted from Miller's TikTok, showed him telling a Ugandan man at a chapati stall, "I think you are a monkey," before making monkey sounds while the man laughed uncomfortably during the exchange.

The Backlash

The screenshots and video spread rapidly across Instagram, TikTok and X, drawing outrage from Ugandans and social media users elsewhere on the continent. Ugandan activist Mama Kwezi shared the chapati stall video on X, tagging the Uganda Police Force directly and writing that Miller was "pretending to be a missionary" while holding views that Ugandans had "low IQ." Commenters demanded his deportation, with one writing simply, "Let him go back to his country," while a South African commenter urged Ugandan authorities to "do the right thing" rather than accept what she called Miller's false expressions of love for the country. Miller's Instagram account disappeared amid the reporting campaign that followed, though his TikTok account remained active, flooded with critical comments.

The controversy also revived painful memories of previous cases involving American missionaries in Uganda. Commentators repeatedly invoked the case of Renee Bach, the American who ran an unlicensed malnutrition clinic in Uganda where more than 800 children died under her care, a case in which Bach faced a civil lawsuit that was settled out of court but was never criminally charged. Uganda's own immigration law provides clear legal mechanisms for such cases: Section 47(g) of the Uganda Citizenship and Immigration Control Act allows the Internal Affairs minister or the director of immigration to declare a foreign national an "undesirable immigrant," while Section 54 permits the minister to issue a written deportation order against anyone whose presence in the country is deemed unlawful, with a right of appeal to the High Court within 15 days.

Legal analysts covering the case noted that Uganda could not simply deport Miller because social media users demanded it. Authorities would need to establish a specific breach, either of his immigration status or of a recognised offence, and follow due process. Notably, Uganda's Computer Misuse (Amendment) Act 2022, which had created an online hate speech offence, was struck down in its entirety by the Constitutional Court on 17 March, after the court found Parliament had passed it without the required quorum, meaning authorities could not lean on that provision to prosecute Miller for his online conduct even had they wished to.

The Follow-Up: A Sudden Departure

By 4 September, the story had moved from online outrage to a real-world resolution, of sorts. Miller posted a video showing himself walking toward the entrance of Entebbe International Airport carrying several bags, complaining that police officers had stopped him from using a motorcycle taxi to approach the terminal, a restriction Entebbe security applies to all bodaboda riders within roughly 500 metres of the main gate. Miller characterised the restriction as racial discrimination, saying in the video, "They are discriminating against me because I am white, which is fine because I am in their country. This is an African country and I am not African." He later posted photographs from aboard an aircraft, indicating he had left Uganda.

Whether Miller was formally ordered to leave by Ugandan immigration authorities, or chose to depart voluntarily amid the mounting backlash, remains unconfirmed. Ugandan police and immigration officials had not issued any public statement on the case at the time of writing, and social media claims that he was "officially deported" have not been corroborated by any government source or established news outlet. Ground View News is treating those claims as unverified pending an official statement.

Why It Matters

The case sits at the intersection of two recurring African concerns: the unregulated presence of foreign "missionaries" who operate with minimal oversight, often working directly with children under the moral authority of religious purpose, and the limits of what social media accountability campaigns can actually achieve without a functioning, transparent state response behind them. Miller's departure, whatever its precise legal character, happened without any confirmed government action, an outcome that leaves the underlying immigration and child-safeguarding questions his case raised entirely unanswered. If he re-enters Uganda, or another African country, under a similar arrangement, there is currently no public record indicating that any formal bar to his return exists.

The Bigger Picture

Uganda's Citizenship and Immigration Control Act gives the state real tools to manage exactly this kind of case, tools that went publicly unused even as the controversy played out over several days in full public view. For a continent that has repeatedly seen foreign missionaries operate with limited scrutiny around vulnerable children, from Renee Bach's unlicensed clinic to the case now involving Mac Miller, the recurring gap is not a shortage of legal authority but a consistent absence of proactive government follow-through, one that leaves social media exposure campaigns to do the work that immigration and child protection systems are supposed to do first.

Related Reading

• Ground View News: "Kenya Tightens the Screws on Foreign Workers as Visa and Work Permit Fees Triple" (this series)
• Ground View News: "Back to Court: Zimbabweans in South Africa Face Fresh Legal Fight Over Their Right to Stay" (this series)

Sources

1. Pulse Uganda, "Ugandans push for deportation of Mukono-based American 'preacher' over racist social media commentary," 3 September 2026. https://www.pulse.ug/story/ugandans-demand-deportation-american-missionary-mac-miller-2026090315063714708
2. Pulse Uganda, "'Racist' preacher Mac Miller leaves Uganda after social media deportation campaign," 4 September 2026. https://www.pulse.ug/story/racist-preacher-mac-miller-leaves-uganda-after-social-media-deportation-campaign-2026090415414066388
3. West Africa Weekly, "Ugandans Demand Deportation of American Missionary Mac Miller Over Racist Comments, Calls to Children." https://westafricaweekly.com/ugandans-demand-deportation-of-american-missionary-mac-miller-over-racist-comments-calls-to-children/
4. NTV Kenya (Facebook), "American self-proclaimed missionary Mac Miller leaves Uganda following a social media campaign." https://www.facebook.com/NTVKenya/videos/american-self-proclaimed-missionary-mac-miller-leaves-uganda-following-a-social-/1743003756989480/

Note on sourcing: Claims that Miller was "officially deported" originate from unverified social media posts (Threads/Facebook, @ericbryanstone) rather than a government or established news source, and are explicitly flagged as unconfirmed in the article above. Any follow-up reporting should seek an on-record statement from the Uganda Directorate of Citizenship and Immigration Control before upgrading "left Uganda" to "deported."