How ‘Authenticity’ on the Job Can Become a Snare for Employees of Color
Within the initial chapters of the book Authentic, author Burey issues a provocation: commonplace advice to “bring your true self” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are far from well-meaning invitations for personal expression – they can be pitfalls. Her first book – a mix of recollections, studies, cultural critique and discussions – seeks to unmask how organizations take over individual identity, shifting the weight of institutional change on to staff members who are frequently at risk.
Career Path and Larger Setting
The driving force for the publication lies partially in Burey’s own career trajectory: different positions across business retail, emerging businesses and in global development, interpreted via her perspective as a woman of color with a disability. The dual posture that the author encounters – a tension between standing up for oneself and looking for safety – is the engine of the book.
It arrives at a time of widespread exhaustion with corporate clichés across America and other regions, as opposition to DEI initiatives increase, and numerous companies are reducing the very systems that once promised transformation and improvement. The author steps into that landscape to argue that retreating from the language of authenticity – specifically, the corporate language that trivializes identity as a collection of appearances, peculiarities and pastimes, leaving workers focused on managing how they are viewed rather than how they are handled – is not a solution; we must instead reframe it on our individual conditions.
Minority Staff and the Act of Persona
By means of colorful examples and interviews, the author demonstrates how employees from minority groups – employees from diverse backgrounds, LGBTQ+ people, women, people with disabilities – quickly realize to modulate which self will “be acceptable”. A vulnerability becomes a liability and people overcompensate by working to appear agreeable. The practice of “presenting your true self” becomes a reflective surface on which various types of anticipations are placed: affective duties, disclosure and constant performance of appreciation. In Burey’s words, workers are told to reveal ourselves – but without the protections or the reliance to survive what comes out.
As Burey explains, employees are requested to expose ourselves – but absent the protections or the reliance to withstand what comes out.’
Illustrative Story: Jason’s Experience
The author shows this phenomenon through the account of a worker, a deaf employee who took it upon himself to inform his colleagues about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His readiness to share his experience – a gesture of openness the organization often commends as “genuineness” – for a short time made routine exchanges more manageable. Yet, the author reveals, that improvement was precarious. Once staff turnover wiped out the unofficial understanding he had established, the environment of accessibility vanished. “All the information left with them,” he notes wearily. What stayed was the fatigue of being forced to restart, of having to take charge for an organization’s educational process. According to Burey, this demonstrates to be told to expose oneself without protection: to face exposure in a framework that praises your openness but declines to institutionalize it into policy. Authenticity becomes a pitfall when companies depend on employee revelation rather than organizational responsibility.
Literary Method and Idea of Resistance
Her literary style is both understandable and poetic. She blends intellectual rigor with a manner of connection: an invitation for audience to lean in, to challenge, to dissent. In Burey’s opinion, dissent at work is not loud rebellion but principled refusal – the act of resisting conformity in environments that expect gratitude for basic acceptance. To dissent, in her framing, is to interrogate the accounts institutions describe about fairness and belonging, and to decline participation in customs that sustain unfairness. It might look like identifying prejudice in a meeting, choosing not to participate of voluntary “equity” work, or defining borders around how much of oneself is made available to the organization. Dissent, the author proposes, is an assertion of individual worth in spaces that typically encourage compliance. It represents a habit of integrity rather than rebellion, a method of asserting that a person’s dignity is not dependent on corporate endorsement.
Redefining Genuineness
The author also avoids brittle binaries. The book does not simply toss out “sincerity” wholesale: on the contrary, she urges its reclamation. In Burey’s view, authenticity is not the raw display of individuality that corporate culture often celebrates, but a more intentional alignment between one’s values and one’s actions – a honesty that resists manipulation by corporate expectations. Instead of viewing genuineness as a directive to disclose excessively or adjust to cleansed standards of candor, Burey urges followers to keep the aspects of it rooted in honesty, personal insight and principled vision. From her perspective, the objective is not to give up on sincerity but to shift it – to transfer it from the corporate display practices and to connections and organizations where confidence, equity and answerability make {
