How ‘Authenticity’ in the Workplace May Transform Into a Snare for People of Color

Throughout the opening pages of the book Authentic, writer Jodi-Ann Burey raises a critical point: commonplace injunctions to “be yourself” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not harmless encouragements for self-expression – they’re traps. Burey’s debut book – a mix of recollections, research, cultural critique and interviews – aims to reveal how organizations co-opt identity, shifting the weight of institutional change on to employees who are often marginalized.

Professional Experience and Wider Environment

The impetus for the publication stems partly in Burey’s personal work history: different positions across corporate retail, new companies and in worldwide progress, interpreted via her experience as a Black disabled woman. The two-fold position that Burey experiences – a push and pull between asserting oneself and seeking protection – is the driving force of her work.

It lands at a period of widespread exhaustion with institutional platitudes across America and other regions, as opposition to diversity and inclusion efforts grow, and various institutions are cutting back the very frameworks that once promised change and reform. Burey enters that landscape to argue that retreating from the language of authenticity – namely, the organizational speech that trivializes identity as a set of appearances, quirks and hobbies, keeping workers concerned with controlling how they are perceived rather than how they are treated – is not the answer; rather, we should reframe it on our individual conditions.

Underrepresented Employees and the Performance of Self

By means of vivid anecdotes and conversations, Burey shows how employees from minority groups – people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, women, disabled individuals – quickly realize to adjust which persona will “fit in”. A vulnerability becomes a drawback and people overcompensate by working to appear agreeable. The effort of “bringing your full self” becomes a display surface on which numerous kinds of expectations are placed: affective duties, disclosure and constant performance of gratitude. In Burey’s words, we are asked to reveal ourselves – but lacking the protections or the trust to endure what arises.

‘In Burey’s words, we are asked to reveal ourselves – but lacking the defenses or the trust to survive what arises.’

Illustrative Story: The Story of Jason

She illustrates this dynamic through the account of Jason, a employee with hearing loss who took it upon himself to inform his colleagues about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His readiness to talk about his life – a gesture of openness the workplace often praises as “authenticity” – briefly made everyday communications easier. Yet, the author reveals, that advancement was precarious. When personnel shifts wiped out the casual awareness he had established, the atmosphere of inclusion disappeared. “Everything he taught left with them,” he comments exhaustedly. What remained was the weariness of needing to begin again, of being made responsible for an organization’s educational process. According to Burey, this demonstrates to be asked to share personally lacking safeguards: to risk vulnerability in a structure that praises your openness but declines to formalize it into regulation. Authenticity becomes a trap when organizations depend on employee revelation rather than structural accountability.

Author’s Approach and Concept of Dissent

Burey’s writing is at once lucid and lyrical. She combines intellectual rigor with a tone of solidarity: an invitation for followers to participate, to question, to dissent. In Burey’s opinion, dissent at work is not noisy protest but principled refusal – the effort of resisting conformity in workplaces that demand thankfulness for simple belonging. To resist, according to her view, is to challenge the stories institutions tell about fairness and acceptance, and to reject participation in practices that perpetuate inequity. It could involve naming bias in a gathering, withdrawing of voluntary “equity” work, or defining borders around how much of one’s identity is offered to the company. Resistance, the author proposes, is an declaration of individual worth in spaces that often praise obedience. It is a habit of integrity rather than opposition, a way of asserting that one’s humanity is not dependent on institutional approval.

Redefining Genuineness

The author also avoids brittle binaries. Her work does not simply discard “sincerity” completely: instead, she urges its restoration. In Burey’s view, genuineness is not simply the unfiltered performance of character that business environment often celebrates, but a more deliberate harmony between one’s values and personal behaviors – an integrity that rejects distortion by organizational requirements. Rather than viewing authenticity as a directive to reveal too much or conform to sterilized models of candor, the author encourages readers to maintain the aspects of it grounded in sincerity, self-awareness and moral understanding. According to Burey, the aim is not to give up on authenticity but to move it – to transfer it from the corporate display practices and toward interactions and offices where confidence, fairness and accountability make {