Why Being Authentic in the Workplace Can Become a Trap for Employees of Color

In the beginning sections of the book Authentic, author Burey raises a critical point: typical advice to “come as you are” 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, investigation, cultural critique and interviews – attempts to expose how organizations take over individual identity, moving the responsibility of organizational transformation on to individual workers who are frequently at risk.

Personal Journey and Larger Setting

The impetus for the book originates in part in the author’s professional path: multiple jobs across corporate retail, new companies and in worldwide progress, interpreted via her perspective as a disabled Black female. The conflicting stance that Burey faces – a push and pull between asserting oneself and looking for safety – is the driving force of the book.

It lands at a time of general weariness with institutional platitudes across America and other regions, as backlash to DEI initiatives grow, and various institutions are cutting back the very structures that earlier assured transformation and improvement. Burey delves into that arena to contend that retreating from authenticity rhetoric – namely, the business jargon that minimizes personal identity as a set of surface traits, quirks and pastimes, keeping workers focused on handling how they are viewed rather than how they are regarded – is not a solution; we must instead redefine it on our personal terms.

Minority Staff and the Display of Persona

By means of colorful examples and conversations, Burey illustrates how underrepresented staff – people of color, LGBTQ+ people, female employees, employees with disabilities – soon understand to modulate which identity will “pass”. A vulnerability becomes a liability and people try too hard by striving to seem palatable. The practice of “bringing your full self” becomes a display surface on which all manner of anticipations are projected: emotional work, sharing personal information and continuous act of thankfulness. According to Burey, workers are told to reveal ourselves – but absent the defenses or the confidence to survive what comes out.

As Burey explains, we are asked to expose ourselves – but lacking the defenses or the trust to endure what comes out.’

Case Study: Jason’s Experience

She illustrates this dynamic through the account of a worker, a hearing-impaired staff member who took it upon himself to educate his colleagues about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His willingness to share his experience – a behavior of openness the workplace often applauds as “genuineness” – temporarily made routine exchanges smoother. However, Burey points out, that improvement was precarious. When employee changes erased the informal knowledge he had established, the environment of accessibility vanished. “All the information left with them,” he comments exhaustedly. What remained was the fatigue of being forced to restart, of being made responsible for an company’s developmental journey. In Burey’s view, this demonstrates to be told to share personally lacking safeguards: to endanger oneself in a structure that praises your openness but fails to formalize it into procedure. Genuineness becomes a trap when institutions count on personal sharing rather than structural accountability.

Literary Method and Idea of Resistance

Burey’s writing is at once understandable and lyrical. She blends intellectual rigor with a manner of connection: an offer for followers to lean in, to question, to disagree. In Burey’s opinion, professional resistance is not overt defiance but principled refusal – the effort of opposing uniformity in settings that expect appreciation for mere inclusion. To oppose, from her perspective, is to interrogate the narratives companies describe about equity and belonging, and to refuse involvement in customs that perpetuate injustice. It may appear as calling out discrimination in a gathering, choosing not to participate of voluntary “inclusion” effort, or defining borders around how much of one’s personal life is made available to the company. Dissent, Burey indicates, is an affirmation of individual worth in environments that frequently encourage obedience. It is a practice of integrity rather than defiance, a approach of insisting that one’s humanity is not dependent on institutional approval.

Redefining Genuineness

She also refuses rigid dichotomies. The book does not simply eliminate “genuineness” wholesale: on the contrary, she calls for its restoration. In Burey’s view, sincerity is far from the unfiltered performance of personality that business environment frequently praises, but a more intentional correspondence between personal beliefs and individual deeds – an integrity that opposes distortion by institutional demands. Instead of treating genuineness as a requirement to disclose excessively or adapt to sanitized ideals of transparency, Burey urges followers to keep the elements of it rooted in sincerity, personal insight and principled vision. In her view, the goal is not to abandon genuineness but to move it – to move it out of the boardroom’s performative rituals and into relationships and offices where confidence, fairness and responsibility make {