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Throughout the initial chapters of the book Authentic, writer the author raises a critical point: everyday injunctions to “be yourself” or “show up completely genuine at work” are far from well-meaning invitations for self-expression – they’re traps. This initial publication – a mix of memoir, research, cultural commentary and conversations – attempts to expose how companies co-opt identity, shifting the weight of corporate reform on to individual workers who are often marginalized.

Professional Experience and Wider Environment

The impetus for the publication stems partly in the author’s professional path: various roles across business retail, emerging businesses and in global development, interpreted via her perspective as a Black disabled woman. The two-fold position that the author encounters – a push and pull between standing up for oneself and aiming for security – is the engine of the book.

It arrives at a time of general weariness with institutional platitudes across the United States and internationally, as backlash to DEI initiatives mount, and many organizations are reducing the very structures that previously offered transformation and improvement. The author steps into that landscape to argue that withdrawing from authenticity rhetoric – namely, the corporate language that reduces individuality as a set of surface traits, peculiarities and hobbies, leaving workers preoccupied with managing how they are perceived rather than how they are treated – is not a solution; instead, we need to reframe it on our own terms.

Minority Staff and the Performance of Persona

Via detailed stories and conversations, the author demonstrates how underrepresented staff – employees from diverse backgrounds, LGBTQ+ people, women workers, people with disabilities – learn early on to adjust which persona will “fit in”. A sensitive point becomes a liability and people try too hard by working to appear acceptable. The act of “presenting your true self” becomes a display surface on which various types of expectations are cast: affective duties, sharing personal information and constant performance of gratitude. In Burey’s words, we are asked to reveal ourselves – but without the protections or the trust to withstand what comes out.

‘In Burey’s words, we are asked to reveal ourselves – but without the protections or the confidence to endure what emerges.’

Illustrative Story: An Employee’s Journey

Burey demonstrates this situation through the account of an employee, a hearing-impaired staff member who took it upon himself to inform his team members about deaf community norms and communication practices. His readiness to discuss his background – a gesture of candor the organization often applauds as “sincerity” – temporarily made routine exchanges smoother. But as Burey shows, that progress was fragile. After personnel shifts eliminated the casual awareness the employee had developed, the environment of accessibility disappeared. “Everything he taught left with them,” he states tiredly. What stayed was the weariness of being forced to restart, of having to take charge for an institution’s learning curve. From the author’s perspective, this demonstrates to be asked to share personally absent defenses: to risk vulnerability in a system that celebrates your honesty but declines to codify it into regulation. Sincerity becomes a snare when institutions count on individual self-disclosure rather than structural accountability.

Writing Style and Concept of Dissent

Her literary style is simultaneously lucid and expressive. She marries intellectual rigor with a style of kinship: an offer for readers to participate, to challenge, to oppose. According to the author, professional resistance is not noisy protest but moral resistance – the effort of rejecting sameness in workplaces that require thankfulness for basic acceptance. To resist, from her perspective, is to challenge the accounts institutions narrate about equity and belonging, and to refuse participation in customs that perpetuate injustice. It might look like calling out discrimination in a gathering, opting out of unpaid “diversity” effort, or setting boundaries around how much of oneself is made available to the institution. Dissent, she suggests, is an affirmation of self-respect in environments that often reward conformity. It constitutes a practice of integrity rather than opposition, a approach of insisting that an individual’s worth is not conditional on institutional approval.

Redefining Genuineness

Burey also rejects rigid dichotomies. Authentic does not merely discard “sincerity” completely: rather, she advocates for its redefinition. According to the author, genuineness is not the raw display of individuality that business environment frequently praises, but a more thoughtful alignment between personal beliefs and individual deeds – a principle that resists distortion by organizational requirements. As opposed to viewing authenticity as a requirement to overshare or adjust to sterilized models of transparency, the author encourages readers to maintain the parts of it rooted in honesty, self-awareness and principled vision. In her view, the goal is not to give up on authenticity but to move it – to remove it from the boardroom’s performative rituals and toward interactions and organizations where confidence, equity and responsibility make {