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In the initial chapters of the book Authentic, speaker the author poses a challenge: commonplace directives to “come as you are” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not harmless encouragements for self-expression – they often become snares. Her first book – a combination of memoir, studies, cultural commentary and interviews – aims to reveal how businesses take over individual identity, shifting the responsibility of organizational transformation on to employees who are already vulnerable.

Personal Journey and Larger Setting

The impetus for the publication stems partly in Burey’s own career trajectory: various roles across business retail, emerging businesses and in international development, viewed through her background as a Black disabled woman. The conflicting stance that Burey faces – a back-and-forth between asserting oneself and seeking protection – is the driving force of Authentic.

It arrives at a period of general weariness with corporate clichés across the US and beyond, as backlash to DEI initiatives increase, and many organizations are scaling back the very structures that once promised transformation and improvement. The author steps into that arena to contend that backing away from authenticity rhetoric – namely, the corporate language that trivializes identity as a grouping of aesthetics, peculiarities and interests, leaving workers preoccupied with handling how they are seen rather than how they are treated – is not a solution; rather, we should reframe it on our individual conditions.

Minority Staff and the Act of Self

Through detailed stories and conversations, Burey shows how employees from minority groups – people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, women workers, employees with disabilities – soon understand to modulate which persona will “be acceptable”. A sensitive point becomes a disadvantage and people overcompensate by attempting to look palatable. The act of “showing your complete identity” becomes a reflective surface on which numerous kinds of anticipations are projected: emotional labor, sharing personal information and constant performance of thankfulness. As the author states, employees are requested to expose ourselves – but lacking the protections or the confidence to survive what comes out.

According to the author, we are asked to expose ourselves – but absent the safeguards or the trust to endure what emerges.’

Illustrative Story: An Employee’s Journey

She illustrates this situation through the account of Jason, a hearing-impaired staff member who took it upon himself to teach his colleagues about deaf culture and interaction standards. His readiness to talk about his life – an act of openness the office often praises as “genuineness” – for a short time made routine exchanges smoother. However, Burey points out, that progress was precarious. After employee changes erased the casual awareness Jason had built, the environment of accessibility dissolved with it. “Everything he taught went away with the staff,” he states tiredly. What stayed was the fatigue of needing to begin again, of being held accountable for an company’s developmental journey. In Burey’s view, this demonstrates to be requested to expose oneself absent defenses: to risk vulnerability in a structure that celebrates your honesty but declines to codify it into regulation. Sincerity becomes a pitfall when organizations depend on individual self-disclosure rather than structural accountability.

Writing Style and Idea of Resistance

The author’s prose is at once lucid and expressive. She blends scholarly depth with a tone of connection: a call for readers to engage, to challenge, to oppose. For Burey, dissent at work is not overt defiance but principled refusal – the practice of resisting conformity in settings that demand gratitude for simple belonging. To resist, according to her view, is to challenge the accounts organizations narrate about fairness and inclusion, and to decline involvement in customs that sustain inequity. It may appear as identifying prejudice in a discussion, opting out of uncompensated “equity” work, or setting boundaries around how much of oneself is provided to the organization. Dissent, the author proposes, is an declaration of personal dignity in settings that often encourage conformity. It represents a discipline of honesty rather than opposition, a method of maintaining that one’s humanity is not dependent on corporate endorsement.

Redefining Genuineness

She also refuses brittle binaries. Her work does not simply eliminate “sincerity” wholesale: on the contrary, she calls for its redefinition. According to the author, sincerity is not the unfiltered performance of personality that organizational atmosphere frequently praises, but a more deliberate alignment between one’s values and personal behaviors – an integrity that rejects manipulation by organizational requirements. As opposed to viewing genuineness as a requirement to overshare or adapt to sanitized ideals of candor, the author encourages readers to maintain the parts of it based on sincerity, personal insight and principled vision. From her perspective, the goal is not to abandon sincerity but to shift it – to move it out of the corporate display practices and into connections and workplaces where reliance, equity and answerability make {