Why the Concept of Authenticity in the Workplace Can Become a Snare for Employees of Color

In the beginning sections of the book Authentic, speaker Burey raises a critical point: typical directives to “come as you are” or “bring your full, authentic self to work” are not benevolent calls for self-expression – they’re traps. This initial publication – a mix of personal stories, research, cultural critique and discussions – attempts to expose how businesses co-opt identity, transferring the weight of corporate reform on to employees who are often marginalized.

Personal Journey and Broader Context

The impetus for the publication lies partially in the author’s professional path: different positions across business retail, new companies and in global development, viewed through her experience as a woman of color with a disability. The conflicting stance that Burey experiences – a push and pull between expressing one’s identity and seeking protection – is the engine of her work.

It lands at a time of general weariness with corporate clichés across America and other regions, as opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs grow, and various institutions are reducing the very structures that once promised change and reform. The author steps into that arena to contend that withdrawing from corporate authenticity talk – that is, the business jargon that reduces individuality as a grouping of aesthetics, idiosyncrasies and interests, forcing workers preoccupied with controlling how they are viewed rather than how they are treated – is not a solution; instead, we need to reinterpret it on our own terms.

Underrepresented Employees and the Display of Self

Via detailed stories and conversations, the author demonstrates how underrepresented staff – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, women workers, people with disabilities – quickly realize to calibrate which identity will “be acceptable”. A sensitive point becomes a drawback and people compensate excessively by striving to seem palatable. The practice of “showing your complete identity” becomes a projection screen on which numerous kinds of anticipations are placed: emotional labor, revealing details and continuous act of thankfulness. According to Burey, employees are requested to reveal ourselves – but without the protections or the reliance to endure what arises.

As Burey explains, employees are requested to expose ourselves – but absent the safeguards or the trust to endure what comes out.’

Illustrative Story: An Employee’s Journey

The author shows this situation through the account of Jason, a hearing-impaired staff member who chose to teach his colleagues about deaf community norms and communication practices. His readiness to discuss his background – a gesture of transparency the office often commends as “authenticity” – for a short time made daily interactions easier. However, Burey points out, that advancement was unstable. When employee changes erased the casual awareness he had established, the environment of accessibility dissolved with it. “All of that knowledge went away with the staff,” he states tiredly. What remained was the fatigue of having to start over, of having to take charge for an institution’s learning curve. In Burey’s view, this illustrates to be requested to reveal oneself without protection: to endanger oneself in a system that applauds your honesty but fails to codify it into procedure. Genuineness becomes a trap when institutions depend on employee revelation rather than organizational responsibility.

Author’s Approach and Concept of Dissent

Her literary style is both clear and lyrical. She combines intellectual rigor with a manner of kinship: a call for audience to lean in, to question, to disagree. For Burey, dissent at work is not overt defiance but moral resistance – the effort of rejecting sameness in settings that expect gratitude for mere inclusion. To oppose, in her framing, is to interrogate the stories companies describe about equity and inclusion, and to reject participation in rituals that sustain inequity. It could involve identifying prejudice in a meeting, opting out of uncompensated “diversity” effort, or establishing limits around how much of one’s identity is provided to the company. Opposition, the author proposes, is an affirmation of individual worth in spaces that frequently encourage obedience. It is a practice of principle rather than defiance, a method of asserting that one’s humanity is not conditional on institutional approval.

Restoring Sincerity

The author also avoids brittle binaries. Authentic does not simply discard “sincerity” wholesale: instead, she urges its redefinition. In Burey’s view, genuineness is far from the unrestricted expression of personality that business environment typically applauds, but a more intentional correspondence between one’s values and one’s actions – an integrity that opposes manipulation by corporate expectations. Rather than considering authenticity as a mandate to disclose excessively or adapt to cleansed standards of transparency, Burey urges readers to maintain the parts of it based on honesty, self-awareness and principled vision. From her perspective, the aim is not to discard genuineness but to shift it – to move it out of the corporate display practices and to connections and offices where trust, fairness and accountability make {