Andraya, Sam, Maggie 

ENGL 137H 

November 18, 2021 

Work Plan: History of a Public Controversy, Park51 

TED Talk Work Day Activity Summary 

Duties of Each Member: 

    Andraya- Research arguments of both sides, scribe, find images, work on script 

    Sam- Research topic related to religious tolerance, goal keeper, narrator, editing, work on script 

    Maggie- Research overall facts, find images, work on script, park ranger 

Timeline: 

• Nov 21 through Nov 28- Over Thanksgiving Break, Sam will finish “religious tolerance” part of script and Andraya and Maggie will revise script and find images/videos 
• Nov 29- Put together first half of video and review 
• Dec 1- Put together second half of video and review 

• Dec 3- Edit and review entire video 
• Dec 5- Finish and turn in rough draft 
• Dec 8 and 10- Clean everything up and double check all the work 
• Dec 10- Turn in final video 

Day 1: 

Our group discussed a range of topics including: 

• Controversial memes (format created by a Nazi) 
• Private business decisions (making a wedding cake for a queer couple) 
• Legal drinking age 

• Religious freedom 
• Hate speech 
• Sex education 
• Park 51 (near world trade center, people view it as disrespectful) 
• North Ireland still being a part of Great Britain 

Day 2: 

After discussing, we decided to pursue the Park51 controversy. The premise of our video will be taking this controversy and tie it to the idea of religious tolerance as a whole. We began researching by becoming knowledgeable and understanding of the topic and timeline of the controversy as a whole. Examples of articles we read are included below.  

Articles: 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/nov/07/ground-zero-park51-new-york 

https://www.factcheck.org/2010/08/questions-about-the-ground-zero-mosque/  

http://www.religioustolerance.org/mosque911a.htm 

https://tanenbaum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Park51-Community-Center-Fact-Sheet-and-Timeline-Aug-2014.pdf 

Day 3: 

We used the information in the articles to explore the stasis questions. 

Conjecture— Is building an Islamic worship space close to the towers disrespectful to the victims? Is not allowing them to build Islamophobic?  

The victims of 9/11 and their families have every right to be upset and some are. Many of the arguments for Park51 have been on the grounds denying them the right to build is Islamophobic.  

Definition— What is the difference between a cultural center and a worship space? What is religious tolerance?  

Due to backlash, it was changed from a worship center to a cultural space that has a worship center inside. It still serves the same function so has anything really changed? How does religious tolerance play a role in this controversy?  

Quality— Could denying Park51 the right to build set a precedent that denying space for religious/ cultural groups is okay?  

Due to the backlash Park51 received there were attempted to stop similar centers around the country. 

Policy— there really aren’t any questions for that fit our topic that goes with this. There are already policies that this building has flowed through and most of the dissenting arguments acknowledge that, legally speaking, this group has every right to build there. It’s a matter of is this disrespectful to the victims, which legally you can disrespect the victims but that isn’t going to make you the most popular person.  

Framing Questions: 

1.  Is it considered Islamophobia to not allow the building of Park51? 

1.  Is it disrespectful for 9/11 victims and their families to build Park51 so close to Ground Zero? 

1.  Will a precedent be created if Park51 is denied the right to be built? 

1.  Does the building of Park51 celebrate terrorists? 

1.  Are morals/ethics or the actual law more important when deciding whether Park51 has the right to be built? 

Media Choices: We will start the video with a primary source video of the first plane crashing into one of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers on 9/11. This will hook the viewer and also provide historical context to the Park51 controversy. Most of our other images and videos will be directly related to the script and content the narrator is covering. We will also provide either the actual words of the quote or a video of the person saying the quote for any important quotations we use.