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Throughout the initial chapters of the book Authentic, author the author issues a provocation: typical injunctions to “come as you are” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not benevolent calls for personal expression – they often become snares. Her first book – a blend of recollections, studies, cultural critique and interviews – aims to reveal how businesses co-opt identity, transferring the responsibility of corporate reform on to staff members who are frequently at risk.

Personal Journey and Wider Environment

The motivation for the work originates in part in the author’s professional path: different positions across retail corporations, emerging businesses and in international development, interpreted via her experience as a Black disabled woman. The two-fold position that the author encounters – a push and pull between asserting oneself and seeking protection – is the engine of the book.

It arrives at a moment of general weariness with institutional platitudes across the US and beyond, as opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs increase, and various institutions are reducing the very frameworks that earlier assured transformation and improvement. The author steps into that landscape to contend that backing away from corporate authenticity talk – that is, the business jargon that trivializes identity as a set of aesthetics, peculiarities and interests, keeping workers concerned with managing how they are viewed rather than how they are regarded – is not an effective response; we must instead redefine it on our own terms.

Underrepresented Employees and the Display of Self

Via colorful examples and discussions, Burey shows how marginalized workers – people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women workers, employees with disabilities – learn early on to adjust which persona will “pass”. A sensitive point becomes a liability and people compensate excessively by striving to seem acceptable. The effort of “presenting your true self” becomes a projection screen on which various types of expectations are cast: affective duties, disclosure and ongoing display of appreciation. According to Burey, employees are requested to expose ourselves – but absent the defenses or the reliance to withstand what arises.

According to the author, workers are told to share our identities – but absent the safeguards or the trust to endure what comes out.’

Case Study: An Employee’s Journey

Burey demonstrates this phenomenon through the account of an employee, a hearing-impaired staff member who took it upon himself to inform his team members about the culture of the deaf community and interaction standards. His willingness to talk about his life – a gesture of transparency the workplace often applauds as “sincerity” – briefly made daily interactions more manageable. Yet, the author reveals, that improvement was unstable. After employee changes erased the informal knowledge the employee had developed, the environment of accessibility vanished. “All the information went away with the staff,” he states tiredly. What was left was the weariness of having to start over, of being held accountable for an company’s developmental journey. From the author’s perspective, this illustrates to be asked to reveal oneself without protection: to risk vulnerability in a structure that celebrates your transparency but refuses to formalize it into policy. Sincerity becomes a pitfall when companies depend on personal sharing rather than institutional answerability.

Author’s Approach and Idea of Resistance

Her literary style is both clear and lyrical. She blends academic thoroughness with a tone of kinship: a call for readers to participate, to question, to oppose. In Burey’s opinion, workplace opposition is not noisy protest but principled refusal – the practice of rejecting sameness in workplaces that expect gratitude for mere inclusion. To resist, according to her view, is to interrogate the narratives institutions describe about fairness and inclusion, and to decline involvement in practices that perpetuate injustice. It could involve naming bias in a gathering, withdrawing of voluntary “inclusion” work, or defining borders around how much of one’s identity is provided to the organization. Resistance, she suggests, is an assertion of individual worth in settings that frequently encourage compliance. It constitutes a practice of integrity rather than opposition, a way of maintaining that one’s humanity is not dependent on corporate endorsement.

Reclaiming Authenticity

The author also avoids rigid dichotomies. The book does not simply toss out “authenticity” entirely: on the contrary, she calls for its redefinition. According to the author, genuineness is not the raw display of character that organizational atmosphere typically applauds, but a more thoughtful correspondence between individual principles and personal behaviors – an integrity that rejects manipulation by corporate expectations. Instead of viewing authenticity as a requirement to disclose excessively or conform to sterilized models of openness, the author encourages audience to maintain the elements of it rooted in truth-telling, personal insight and principled vision. In her view, the goal is not to give up on authenticity but to move it – to move it out of the corporate display practices and toward interactions and offices where confidence, equity and responsibility make {