Leigh Raiford is associate professor of African American Studies at UC Berkeley, where her teaching and research interests focus on photography, film, and art of the African Diaspora. She is the author of Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle.

An African American woman living away from her family in Los Angeles yearns to be recognized for more than her physical attributes. In cultivating the friendship of a male office mate, she aspires to a relationship where romance is not a factor, seeking someone who can "see her as she is," rather than see only what he wants to see.