How ‘Authenticity’ at Work Often Turns Into a Snare for Employees of Color
In the beginning sections of the book Authentic, speaker Jodi-Ann Burey issues a provocation: everyday injunctions to “be yourself” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not harmless encouragements for self-expression – they often become snares. This initial publication – a mix of memoir, studies, cultural commentary and conversations – attempts to expose how organizations appropriate personal identity, moving the burden of organizational transformation on to individual workers who are already vulnerable.
Professional Experience and Wider Environment
The driving force for the publication lies partially in Burey’s own career trajectory: multiple jobs across corporate retail, new companies and in global development, interpreted via her experience as a disabled Black female. The conflicting stance that the author encounters – a tension between asserting oneself and looking for safety – is the core of Authentic.
It lands at a moment of collective fatigue with organizational empty phrases across America and other regions, as backlash to DEI initiatives increase, and many organizations are cutting back the very systems that once promised progress and development. Burey enters that arena to argue that backing away from the language of authenticity – specifically, the organizational speech that trivializes identity as a grouping of appearances, quirks and hobbies, forcing workers preoccupied with handling how they are perceived rather than how they are handled – is not an effective response; instead, we need to redefine it on our own terms.
Minority Staff and the Performance of Persona
Through vivid anecdotes and interviews, Burey shows how underrepresented staff – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ people, women workers, people with disabilities – soon understand to modulate which persona will “pass”. A sensitive point becomes a liability and people compensate excessively by attempting to look acceptable. The act of “bringing your full self” becomes a projection screen on which various types of assumptions are cast: affective duties, disclosure and ongoing display of appreciation. As the author states, we are asked to share our identities – but without the protections or the confidence to withstand what emerges.
As Burey explains, we are asked to expose ourselves – but without the protections or the reliance to survive what comes out.’
Illustrative Story: The Story of Jason
Burey demonstrates this situation through the story of a worker, a deaf employee who chose to inform his team members about deaf culture and communication practices. His readiness to talk about his life – an act of candor the office often commends as “authenticity” – briefly made daily interactions easier. But as Burey shows, that progress was precarious. After personnel shifts eliminated the informal knowledge Jason had built, the culture of access disappeared. “All the information went away with the staff,” he states tiredly. What remained was the weariness of having to start over, of being held accountable for an organization’s educational process. From the author’s perspective, this demonstrates to be told to share personally lacking safeguards: to risk vulnerability in a system that applauds your openness but refuses to formalize it into policy. Authenticity becomes a pitfall when companies count on personal sharing rather than organizational responsibility.
Author’s Approach and Idea of Resistance
Her literary style is at once understandable and poetic. She blends intellectual rigor with a style of kinship: an invitation for readers to participate, to challenge, to oppose. For Burey, dissent at work is not loud rebellion but moral resistance – the effort of rejecting sameness in environments that require appreciation for mere inclusion. To dissent, from her perspective, is to question the accounts companies narrate about justice and acceptance, and to refuse participation in practices that sustain injustice. It could involve naming bias in a gathering, withdrawing of voluntary “equity” work, or defining borders around how much of one’s personal life is offered to the organization. Resistance, Burey indicates, is an affirmation of personal dignity in spaces that often encourage obedience. It represents a habit of principle rather than rebellion, a method of insisting that an individual’s worth is not based on institutional approval.
Redefining Genuineness
The author also avoids rigid dichotomies. The book does not simply discard “genuineness” entirely: rather, she advocates for its redefinition. For Burey, authenticity is far from the unfiltered performance of character that organizational atmosphere frequently praises, but a more thoughtful harmony between personal beliefs and individual deeds – a principle that resists alteration by corporate expectations. Instead of treating sincerity as a mandate to overshare or adapt to sanitized ideals of transparency, Burey urges readers to preserve the aspects of it grounded in honesty, self-awareness and principled vision. From her perspective, the goal is not to give up on genuineness but to relocate it – to transfer it from the corporate display practices and toward relationships and organizations where trust, equity and answerability make {
