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Throughout the initial chapters of the publication Authentic, speaker the author raises a critical point: typical directives to “bring your true self” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not benevolent calls for personal expression – they can be pitfalls. This initial publication – a mix of memoir, research, cultural commentary and interviews – seeks to unmask how businesses take over individual identity, transferring the burden of institutional change on to employees who are frequently at risk.

Personal Journey and Wider Environment

The impetus for the work lies partially in the author’s professional path: different positions across retail corporations, new companies and in international development, viewed through her experience as a disabled Black female. The conflicting stance that Burey faces – a back-and-forth between asserting oneself and aiming for security – is the engine of her work.

It arrives at a time of widespread exhaustion with institutional platitudes across America and other regions, as opposition to DEI initiatives mount, and numerous companies are reducing the very systems that previously offered progress and development. The author steps into that arena to assert that backing away from the language of authenticity – namely, the corporate language that reduces individuality as a collection of aesthetics, quirks and hobbies, leaving workers focused on controlling how they are viewed rather than how they are handled – is not the answer; instead, we need to redefine it on our individual conditions.

Marginalized Workers and the Act of Identity

Through detailed stories and interviews, Burey illustrates how underrepresented staff – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, women, people with disabilities – learn early on to calibrate which self will “be acceptable”. A vulnerability becomes a liability and people try too hard by working to appear agreeable. The practice of “showing your complete identity” becomes a display surface on which numerous kinds of expectations are projected: emotional work, revealing details and continuous act of gratitude. According to Burey, workers are told to share our identities – but lacking the protections or the confidence to survive what arises.

‘In Burey’s words, we are asked to reveal ourselves – but lacking the safeguards or the confidence to endure what comes out.’

Case Study: An Employee’s Journey

The author shows this phenomenon through the narrative of Jason, a deaf employee who took it upon himself to inform his team members about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His readiness to discuss his background – an act of openness the organization often applauds as “genuineness” – briefly made everyday communications easier. However, Burey points out, that improvement was unstable. After employee changes erased the unofficial understanding he had established, the culture of access dissolved with it. “Everything he taught went away with the staff,” he comments exhaustedly. What stayed was the weariness of being forced to restart, of having to take charge for an organization’s educational process. According to Burey, this is what it means to be told to share personally without protection: to risk vulnerability in a structure that applauds your transparency but refuses to institutionalize it into procedure. Authenticity becomes a trap when organizations rely on employee revelation rather than structural accountability.

Author’s Approach and Notion of Opposition

Burey’s writing is both lucid and poetic. She combines scholarly depth with a manner of solidarity: a call for readers to lean in, to interrogate, to dissent. According to the author, dissent at work is not noisy protest but ethical rejection – the effort of rejecting sameness in workplaces that demand appreciation for mere inclusion. To oppose, in her framing, is to question the narratives companies tell about justice and inclusion, and to decline engagement in practices that perpetuate injustice. It may appear as calling out discrimination in a meeting, withdrawing of unpaid “diversity” work, or setting boundaries around how much of oneself is made available to the organization. Dissent, the author proposes, is an declaration of individual worth in environments that typically encourage obedience. It represents a practice of honesty rather than defiance, a way of maintaining that an individual’s worth is not dependent on corporate endorsement.

Redefining Genuineness

She also refuses rigid dichotomies. The book does not simply discard “authenticity” wholesale: rather, she calls for its redefinition. According to the author, sincerity is far from the unrestricted expression of individuality that business environment frequently praises, but a more intentional alignment between individual principles and one’s actions – a principle that rejects manipulation by corporate expectations. As opposed to viewing sincerity as a mandate to reveal too much or adapt to cleansed standards of candor, Burey advises followers to maintain the parts of it grounded in sincerity, personal insight and principled vision. From her perspective, the aim is not to discard sincerity but to move it – to remove it from the boardroom’s performative rituals and to connections and offices where confidence, equity and responsibility make {