Resumen de Good muslims, bad muslims, and the nation: : The “ground zero mosque” and the problem with tolerance
The local controversy over Cordoba House or the “Ground Zero Mosque” peaked at a May 2010 Lower Manhattan Community Board meeting that was open to the public. Examining the tolerance rhetorics evoked both for and against Cordoba, this paper argues that both tolerance rhetorics function differently to re-center the white non-Muslim subject and to structure inclusion and belonging within the nation. Extending the literature of tolerance, which tends to focus on the discourse of normative subjects, I analyze the tolerance rhetorics of two Muslim-American rhetors whose testimonies reveal the tensions, contradictions, and complicities involved in claims of national belonging.
