No one from the Middle East is white in their eyes any more than they see Jewish people as white enough. None of these bigots I've dealt with believe or (quite often) have ever even heard that the Iranian peoples (ethnic Persians) migrated out of the Caucus Mountains and share a prehistoric ancestry with all Caucasian peoples. Bigots just aren't that educated and are seldom moved by having such knowledge revealed to them.

To them, my Iranian Persian husband is not white at all. His citizenship barely registers with them as valid. And perforce, that makes my son not white enough. It's narrow minded and willfully stupid and ignorant. But then, isn't all bigotry? IME, it's mental illness.

To be fair, ethnic Persians see their race as Persian, whether they are in Iran, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Russia, Azerbaijan and Afghanistan – and they usually speak a Persian language – just as ethnic Jews see themselves as a Jewish race with a Jewish language in common as well.