It is necessary to outline here exactly how Nafisi and Nemat’s narratives are inserted into a discourse of whiteness. I am arguing that Nafisi and Nemat construct their narratives as authoritative by describing and presenting themselves as narrators that do not support the Islamic Republic of Iran and are concerned with women’s rights in Muslim countries. As stated, Nafisi makes her narrative voice distinct by marking it as secular, educated and thoroughly engaged with Western values. Nemat’s identity as a Christian minority in Iran, coupled with her experience of torture and imprisonment and her enthusiasm for Canada as an ideal place to live are used to construct Nemat as a reliable narrator. The modes through which both writers establish these differences predominantly involve depictions of Muslims and Iran as an Islamic society in a way that reiterates Western Orientalist thinking about the Middle East. In my thinking through these texts as uttering a form of ‘whiteness’, I put forth that ‘whiteness’ in relation to memoirs by Iranian diasporic women emerges as a category that seeks to distance itself from current racialized depictions of Muslims. The racialization of Muslims in the current context, occurs at both the level of institutional racism and sentimental racism. Razack has mapped this convergence in two parts:

First, race thinking, the denial of a common bond of humanity between people of European descent and those who are not, remains a defining feature of the world order. Second, this ‘colour lined’ world is one increasingly governed by the logic of the exception and the camps of abandoned or ‘rightless’ people it creates.

As such, a discourse of ‘fundamental difference’ between Muslims and non-Muslims becomes the founding logic driving control of Muslim populations, as evidenced by American military invasion into Iraq and Western immigration management systems that detain asylum seekers and forbid Muslim schoolgirls from wearing the hijab. Through their narratives depicting life in Iran, books such as Reading Lolita in Tehran and Prisoner of Tehran align themselves with these movements by marking their narrative voices as distinct from ‘barbaric’ Islam. Thus, they establish marginal positions for themselves within Iranian society and ‘whiten’ themselves through affiliation with Western culture, values and practices. The reach of both of these texts in the current ‘war against terror’ is what gives the texts power in helping to justify both institutional and sentimental racism against Muslims.

The [Iranian] regime is doubtless a serious threat to much of its own population — and regrettably, is hardly unique on that score. But the primary threat to the U.S. and Israel is that Iran might deter their free exercise of violence. A further threat is that the Iranians clearly seek to extend their influence to neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, and beyond as well. Those “illegitimate” acts are called “destabilizing” (or worse). In contrast, forceful imposition of U.S. influence halfway around the world contributes to “stability” and order, in accord with traditional doctrine about who owns the world.