An argument interrupted by a visitor

Cassandra did not have a chance to answer her mother before the argument resumed.

"Do you think this is some kind of joke, Sharon?" her father sputtered, hands on hips. "What's going to happen when this little wide-eyed blonde girl in the pretty pink dress shows up unescorted at their door?"

"I don't know, Harold," her mother snapped, "Why don't you tell me?"

"She's our daughter, and she's precious," was his reply in an even but angry tone. "We have to protect her."

"Oh, from the big bad negro?" Sharon scoffed, raising her voice and waving her arms. "I guess she's just gonna get while we're sitting here next door? You sound like my father!"

"He's a pillar of this community," Harold reminded her.

"He's in the KKK!" she corrected him. "And I don't want my daughter being terrified of black men the way I was. This racism is unfair to our neighbors, and quite frankly it's insulting to Cassie and me to view us as property whose honor is tied to how men are allowed to use us."

"Look, you're upsetting her!" Harold protested, pointing at their horrified daughter, mouth agape and tears in her eyes. "All this talk of Cassie being used and by negroes, on her birthday of all days?!"

Cassie could only put her hands to her mouth in silent shock, unable to respond to such a bizarre dispute. Just then a knock came on the front door, and Cassie turned her back on her parents to open it, relieved to have an interruption, while also worried that the arriving guest must have heard the heated debate through the open window...