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In the opening pages of the book Authentic, writer Burey issues a provocation: commonplace injunctions to “come as you are” or “show up completely genuine at work” are far from well-meaning invitations for personal expression – they often become snares. Burey’s debut book – a mix of memoir, research, societal analysis and conversations – seeks to unmask how organizations appropriate personal identity, transferring the responsibility of institutional change on to employees who are frequently at risk.

Career Path and Larger Setting

The impetus for the work stems partly in the author’s professional path: multiple jobs across business retail, startups and in worldwide progress, viewed through her background as a disabled Black female. The two-fold position that Burey experiences – a push and pull between expressing one’s identity and seeking protection – is the core of Authentic.

It emerges at a time of widespread exhaustion with organizational empty phrases across the US and beyond, as opposition to diversity and inclusion efforts increase, and various institutions are reducing the very structures that earlier assured progress and development. The author steps into that terrain to assert that backing away from corporate authenticity talk – namely, the corporate language that reduces individuality as a set of appearances, peculiarities and hobbies, forcing workers concerned with controlling how they are viewed rather than how they are treated – is not an effective response; we must instead redefine it on our personal terms.

Minority Staff and the Act of Persona

By means of colorful examples and conversations, the author demonstrates how underrepresented staff – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ people, women, people with disabilities – learn early on to calibrate which self will “pass”. A sensitive point becomes a drawback and people overcompensate by striving to seem palatable. The effort of “presenting your true self” becomes a reflective surface on which all manner of anticipations are cast: affective duties, disclosure and constant performance of thankfulness. In Burey’s words, workers are told to expose ourselves – but without the safeguards or the reliance to survive what arises.

According to the author, workers are told to expose ourselves – but without the defenses or the confidence to withstand what comes out.’

Illustrative Story: Jason’s Experience

Burey demonstrates this phenomenon through the story of a worker, a hearing-impaired staff member who took it upon himself to teach his colleagues about deaf culture and communication norms. His willingness to talk about his life – a gesture of openness the organization often applauds as “sincerity” – temporarily made routine exchanges easier. But as Burey shows, that progress was fragile. Once employee changes erased the unofficial understanding he had established, the environment of accessibility disappeared. “All of that knowledge left with them,” he notes wearily. What stayed was the weariness of needing to begin again, of having to take charge for an company’s developmental journey. According to Burey, this demonstrates to be asked to reveal oneself absent defenses: to risk vulnerability in a system that praises your openness but fails to institutionalize it into procedure. Sincerity becomes a snare when institutions count on individual self-disclosure rather than organizational responsibility.

Literary Method and Idea of Resistance

Her literary style is at once understandable and lyrical. She combines intellectual rigor with a manner of connection: a call for followers to participate, to question, to oppose. According to the author, workplace opposition is not noisy protest but ethical rejection – the effort of rejecting sameness in settings that expect gratitude for mere inclusion. To oppose, from her perspective, is to challenge the stories institutions describe about fairness and inclusion, and to refuse participation in practices that maintain unfairness. It might look like calling out discrimination in a meeting, choosing not to participate of voluntary “diversity” labor, or setting boundaries around how much of oneself is provided to the institution. Resistance, the author proposes, is an assertion of personal dignity in spaces that often reward conformity. It constitutes a habit of honesty rather than defiance, a method of asserting that an individual’s worth is not dependent on corporate endorsement.

Reclaiming Authenticity

Burey also rejects brittle binaries. Her work does not merely discard “sincerity” completely: instead, she calls for its redefinition. For Burey, authenticity is not simply the unfiltered performance of individuality that business environment frequently praises, but a more thoughtful alignment between individual principles and one’s actions – a honesty that resists distortion by corporate expectations. Rather than treating sincerity as a mandate to disclose excessively or adjust to sterilized models of transparency, the author encourages readers to preserve the elements of it based on honesty, self-awareness and ethical clarity. According to Burey, the aim is not to discard authenticity but to move it – to transfer it from the boardroom’s performative rituals and toward relationships and organizations where reliance, fairness and answerability make {