Why ‘Authenticity’ in the Workplace May Transform Into a Trap for People of Color

Throughout the beginning sections of the publication Authentic, author Jodi-Ann Burey raises a critical point: typical advice to “come as you are” or “present your real identity in the workplace” are not benevolent calls for self-expression – they can be pitfalls. This initial publication – a blend of personal stories, research, societal analysis and interviews – aims to reveal how companies take over individual identity, shifting the responsibility of organizational transformation on to employees who are often marginalized.

Personal Journey and Larger Setting

The motivation for the publication lies partially in Burey’s own career trajectory: various roles across corporate retail, startups and in global development, viewed through her perspective as a Black disabled woman. The conflicting stance that Burey faces – a back-and-forth between expressing one’s identity and looking for safety – is the driving force of Authentic.

It emerges at a moment of collective fatigue with corporate clichés across the US and beyond, as opposition to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs increase, and numerous companies are scaling back the very frameworks that earlier assured transformation and improvement. Burey enters that landscape to argue that withdrawing from authenticity rhetoric – that is, the corporate language that reduces individuality as a collection of surface traits, idiosyncrasies and interests, leaving workers preoccupied with controlling how they are seen rather than how they are treated – is not an effective response; we must instead redefine it on our own terms.

Marginalized Workers and the Act of Identity

Through colorful examples and conversations, Burey shows how marginalized workers – individuals of color, LGBTQ+ people, female employees, people with disabilities – quickly realize to modulate which self will “be acceptable”. A vulnerability becomes a liability and people try too hard by attempting to look acceptable. The act of “bringing your full self” becomes a projection screen on which all manner of assumptions are projected: emotional work, sharing personal information and ongoing display of gratitude. As the author states, workers are told to reveal ourselves – but absent the defenses or the confidence to withstand what emerges.

As Burey explains, workers are told to reveal ourselves – but absent the protections or the reliance to withstand what comes out.’

Real-Life Example: An Employee’s Journey

The author shows this dynamic through the story of Jason, a hearing-impaired staff member who decided to inform his team members about deaf culture and interaction standards. His eagerness to share his experience – an act of openness the office often applauds as “sincerity” – briefly made routine exchanges easier. Yet, the author reveals, that progress was precarious. After personnel shifts eliminated the unofficial understanding the employee had developed, the culture of access dissolved with it. “Everything he taught left with them,” he notes wearily. What stayed was the weariness of needing to begin again, of being made responsible for an institution’s learning curve. In Burey’s view, this demonstrates to be requested to reveal oneself lacking safeguards: to endanger oneself in a framework that celebrates your transparency but declines to formalize it into policy. Sincerity becomes a trap when institutions depend on individual self-disclosure rather than institutional answerability.

Literary Method and Concept of Dissent

Burey’s writing is both lucid and lyrical. She marries scholarly depth with a style of connection: an offer for followers to participate, to question, to disagree. For Burey, professional resistance is not noisy protest but ethical rejection – the effort of resisting conformity in settings that expect gratitude for mere inclusion. To dissent, according to her view, is to challenge the narratives institutions narrate about equity and belonging, and to decline participation in practices that maintain inequity. It might look like naming bias in a gathering, withdrawing of unpaid “inclusion” effort, or setting boundaries around how much of one’s personal life is offered to the company. Dissent, the author proposes, is an affirmation of self-respect in settings that typically encourage conformity. It constitutes a discipline of principle rather than defiance, a method of asserting that a person’s dignity is not dependent on organizational acceptance.

Redefining Genuineness

She also refuses inflexible opposites. Authentic does not simply eliminate “genuineness” entirely: on the contrary, she calls for its reclamation. For Burey, sincerity is not simply the raw display of individuality that corporate culture frequently praises, but a more deliberate alignment between personal beliefs and personal behaviors – an integrity that opposes alteration by institutional demands. Instead of treating authenticity as a mandate to overshare or adjust to cleansed standards of transparency, Burey urges readers to keep the elements of it based on sincerity, self-awareness and moral understanding. In her view, the objective is not to give up on genuineness but to relocate it – to move it out of the boardroom’s performative rituals and toward connections and workplaces where confidence, equity and answerability make {