The Ways ‘Authenticity’ on the Job May Transform Into a Snare for People of Color

Throughout the opening pages of the publication Authentic, writer Jodi-Ann Burey raises a critical point: commonplace injunctions to “be yourself” or “show up completely genuine at work” are not benevolent calls for individuality – they can be pitfalls. Burey’s debut book – a mix of personal stories, investigation, societal analysis and interviews – seeks to unmask how organizations take over individual identity, transferring the weight of institutional change on to employees who are frequently at risk.

Professional Experience and Wider Environment

The driving force for the book originates in part in the author’s professional path: different positions across corporate retail, new companies and in global development, viewed through her experience as a disabled Black female. The dual posture that Burey experiences – a push and pull between expressing one’s identity and looking for safety – is the engine of her work.

It lands at a time of collective fatigue with institutional platitudes across the US and beyond, as opposition to DEI initiatives mount, and numerous companies are reducing the very frameworks that previously offered transformation and improvement. Burey delves into that terrain to contend that withdrawing from authenticity rhetoric – that is, the business jargon that minimizes personal identity as a collection of appearances, quirks and pastimes, keeping workers preoccupied with controlling how they are seen rather than how they are handled – is not the answer; instead, we need to reframe it on our individual conditions.

Minority Staff and the Performance of Self

By means of vivid anecdotes and conversations, Burey illustrates how underrepresented staff – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, female employees, employees with disabilities – quickly realize to modulate which identity will “pass”. A weakness becomes a liability and people try too hard by working to appear acceptable. The act of “presenting your true self” becomes a display surface on which all manner of expectations are cast: emotional labor, revealing details and ongoing display of thankfulness. According to Burey, we are asked to share our identities – but lacking the defenses or the confidence to survive what comes out.

As Burey explains, employees are requested to share our identities – but absent the safeguards or the confidence to endure what arises.’

Illustrative Story: An Employee’s Journey

She illustrates this phenomenon through the story of a worker, a hearing-impaired staff member who chose to educate his team members about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His readiness to discuss his background – an act of transparency the office often commends as “genuineness” – for a short time made everyday communications easier. Yet, the author reveals, that improvement was precarious. When employee changes erased the casual awareness the employee had developed, the environment of accessibility disappeared. “Everything he taught departed with those employees,” he states tiredly. What remained was the fatigue of having to start over, of having to take charge for an institution’s learning curve. According to Burey, this demonstrates to be requested to reveal oneself without protection: to endanger oneself in a framework that celebrates your transparency but fails to codify it into regulation. Genuineness becomes a pitfall when companies depend on personal sharing rather than institutional answerability.

Literary Method and Idea of Resistance

Burey’s writing is both clear and expressive. She blends intellectual rigor with a style of solidarity: a call for audience to lean in, to challenge, to disagree. According to the author, dissent at work is not loud rebellion but ethical rejection – the effort of rejecting sameness in workplaces that expect thankfulness for simple belonging. To dissent, according to her view, is to question the stories organizations tell about justice and acceptance, and to refuse engagement in practices that maintain injustice. It could involve identifying prejudice in a discussion, choosing not to participate of voluntary “diversity” work, or establishing limits around how much of one’s personal life is made available to the institution. Dissent, she suggests, is an affirmation of individual worth in environments that typically encourage obedience. It is a practice of integrity rather than rebellion, a way of maintaining that one’s humanity is not based on institutional approval.

Redefining Genuineness

The author also avoids rigid dichotomies. The book avoids just toss out “authenticity” completely: instead, she calls for its redefinition. In Burey’s view, genuineness is far from the unrestricted expression of character that organizational atmosphere typically applauds, but a more intentional correspondence between personal beliefs and one’s actions – a honesty that resists manipulation by organizational requirements. As opposed to viewing genuineness as a directive to disclose excessively or adjust to sanitized ideals of openness, Burey urges readers to maintain the aspects of it grounded in truth-telling, self-awareness and moral understanding. From her perspective, the goal is not to give up on sincerity but to relocate it – to move it out of the boardroom’s performative rituals and to interactions and offices where trust, justice and answerability make {