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Within the opening pages of the publication Authentic, author Burey issues a provocation: commonplace injunctions to “come as you are” or “bring your full, authentic self to work” are not harmless encouragements for personal expression – they can be pitfalls. Burey’s debut book – a blend of personal stories, studies, cultural commentary and interviews – attempts to expose how companies appropriate personal identity, moving the weight of corporate reform on to individual workers who are already vulnerable.

Professional Experience and Larger Setting

The motivation for the publication originates in part in Burey’s own career trajectory: multiple jobs across business retail, startups and in international development, interpreted via her experience as a Black disabled woman. The conflicting stance that Burey faces – a push and pull between asserting oneself and aiming for security – is the core of her work.

It emerges at a time of widespread exhaustion with institutional platitudes across the US and beyond, as backlash to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs increase, and various institutions are cutting back the very structures that earlier assured progress and development. Burey delves into that terrain to contend that backing away from the language of authenticity – that is, the business jargon that trivializes identity as a set of appearances, idiosyncrasies and hobbies, leaving workers concerned with handling how they are perceived rather than how they are treated – is not a solution; we must instead redefine it on our own terms.

Underrepresented Employees and the Display of Identity

By means of detailed stories and interviews, Burey illustrates how employees from minority groups – people of color, LGBTQ+ people, women workers, people with disabilities – soon understand to adjust which self will “pass”. A weakness becomes a disadvantage and people compensate excessively by striving to seem palatable. The effort of “showing your complete identity” becomes a projection screen on which all manner of assumptions are placed: emotional work, sharing personal information and continuous act of appreciation. In Burey’s words, we are asked to reveal ourselves – but without the safeguards or the confidence to endure what comes out.

‘In Burey’s words, we are asked to expose ourselves – but absent the defenses or the confidence to endure what comes out.’

Real-Life Example: An Employee’s Journey

She illustrates this phenomenon through the account of an employee, a hearing-impaired staff member who took it upon himself to teach his co-workers about deaf community norms and communication practices. His readiness to share his experience – a gesture of candor the organization often praises as “authenticity” – for a short time made everyday communications more manageable. But as Burey shows, that progress was fragile. Once employee changes eliminated the unofficial understanding Jason had built, the culture of access dissolved with it. “All of that knowledge left with them,” he comments exhaustedly. What stayed was the fatigue of needing to begin again, of being made responsible for an company’s developmental journey. From the author’s perspective, this illustrates to be asked to share personally absent defenses: to face exposure in a framework that applauds your openness but refuses to institutionalize it into policy. Authenticity becomes a pitfall when institutions depend on employee revelation rather than structural accountability.

Writing Style and Concept of Dissent

Burey’s writing is simultaneously understandable and poetic. She combines scholarly depth with a manner of solidarity: an invitation for audience to engage, to question, to dissent. In Burey’s opinion, professional resistance is not loud rebellion but moral resistance – the act of rejecting sameness in workplaces that expect thankfulness for mere inclusion. To dissent, according to her view, is to interrogate the narratives companies describe about equity and acceptance, and to reject involvement in practices that sustain inequity. It may appear as naming bias in a gathering, opting out of uncompensated “equity” labor, or establishing limits around how much of oneself is made available to the company. Resistance, she suggests, is an declaration of self-respect in environments that often encourage conformity. It is a practice of principle rather than opposition, a approach of insisting that a person’s dignity is not based on institutional approval.

Reclaiming Authenticity

Burey also rejects brittle binaries. The book does not merely discard “sincerity” wholesale: on the contrary, she advocates for its redefinition. In Burey’s view, sincerity is not simply the raw display of individuality that organizational atmosphere frequently praises, but a more intentional alignment between personal beliefs and one’s actions – a honesty that opposes alteration by institutional demands. Instead of treating sincerity as a directive to overshare or adapt to cleansed standards of openness, the author encourages readers to preserve the aspects of it based on truth-telling, individual consciousness and principled vision. From her perspective, the objective is not to give up on sincerity but to move it – to transfer it from the corporate display practices and toward interactions and organizations where confidence, equity and answerability make {