Why Being Authentic on the Job Often Turns Into a Snare for Employees of Color
Throughout the beginning sections of the publication Authentic, writer Jodi-Ann Burey poses a challenge: typical injunctions to “come as you are” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not harmless encouragements for self-expression – they often become snares. Burey’s debut book – a mix of personal stories, investigation, cultural commentary and discussions – seeks to unmask how organizations co-opt identity, transferring the responsibility of institutional change on to staff members who are already vulnerable.
Career Path and Larger Setting
The impetus for the publication originates in part in the author’s professional path: different positions across retail corporations, new companies and in international development, viewed through her experience as a Black disabled woman. The conflicting stance that Burey faces – a tension between expressing one’s identity and seeking protection – is the core of her work.
It lands at a period of collective fatigue with corporate clichés across America and other regions, as backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs grow, and various institutions are scaling back the very systems that earlier assured progress and development. Burey enters that terrain to contend that withdrawing from the language of authenticity – namely, the organizational speech that reduces individuality as a collection of surface traits, idiosyncrasies and pastimes, keeping workers focused on managing how they are seen rather than how they are treated – is not an effective response; rather, we should reframe it on our individual conditions.
Underrepresented Employees and the Performance of Identity
Via detailed stories and discussions, Burey shows how employees from minority groups – individuals of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, women, disabled individuals – quickly realize to adjust which persona will “fit in”. A vulnerability becomes a disadvantage and people try too hard by attempting to look palatable. The practice of “showing your complete identity” becomes a projection screen on which all manner of expectations are projected: emotional work, revealing details and constant performance of thankfulness. In Burey’s words, workers are told to expose ourselves – but lacking the safeguards or the confidence to withstand what arises.
‘In Burey’s words, workers are told to share our identities – but absent the protections or the trust to withstand what arises.’
Case Study: The Story of Jason
Burey demonstrates this situation through the narrative of Jason, a employee with hearing loss who chose to educate his team members about the culture of the deaf community and communication practices. His willingness to share his experience – a behavior of transparency the office often applauds as “sincerity” – briefly made daily interactions easier. Yet, the author reveals, that improvement was unstable. Once personnel shifts erased the casual awareness Jason had built, the environment of accessibility vanished. “All the information went away with the staff,” he states tiredly. What stayed was the weariness of being forced to restart, of having to take charge for an company’s developmental journey. According to Burey, this is what it means to be told to reveal oneself without protection: to endanger oneself in a structure that celebrates your transparency but fails to formalize it into regulation. Authenticity becomes a pitfall when organizations rely on employee revelation rather than organizational responsibility.
Literary Method and Idea of Resistance
Burey’s writing is simultaneously lucid and lyrical. She combines scholarly depth with a manner of connection: an invitation for followers to engage, to interrogate, to dissent. In Burey’s opinion, professional resistance is not loud rebellion but principled refusal – the act of resisting conformity in settings that demand appreciation for simple belonging. To resist, in her framing, is to interrogate the stories organizations narrate about equity and inclusion, and to reject engagement in practices that perpetuate unfairness. It might look like identifying prejudice in a discussion, withdrawing of uncompensated “equity” work, or defining borders around how much of one’s personal life is provided to the organization. Opposition, the author proposes, is an declaration of self-respect in spaces that frequently reward conformity. It represents a habit of integrity rather than opposition, a approach of asserting that one’s humanity is not dependent on corporate endorsement.
Restoring Sincerity
She also refuses inflexible opposites. The book avoids just discard “genuineness” completely: on the contrary, she urges its redefinition. In Burey’s view, genuineness is far from the unrestricted expression of individuality that business environment typically applauds, but a more intentional harmony between one’s values and one’s actions – a honesty that rejects alteration by institutional demands. As opposed to treating sincerity as a directive to overshare or conform to sanitized ideals of candor, Burey advises audience to keep the parts of it based on truth-telling, personal insight and moral understanding. From her perspective, the objective is not to give up on sincerity but to relocate it – to move it out of the executive theatrical customs and to connections and organizations where confidence, equity and answerability make {
