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Within the opening pages of the publication Authentic, writer Jodi-Ann Burey poses a challenge: everyday directives to “come as you are” or “show up completely genuine at work” are far from well-meaning invitations for personal expression – they can be pitfalls. Her first book – a mix of memoir, studies, cultural critique and discussions – seeks to unmask how organizations take over individual identity, moving the responsibility of corporate reform on to individual workers who are often marginalized.

Personal Journey and Larger Setting

The motivation for the publication stems partly in the author’s professional path: multiple jobs across retail corporations, new companies and in global development, viewed through her background as a woman of color with a disability. The two-fold position that the author encounters – a back-and-forth between asserting oneself and aiming for security – is the core of her work.

It lands at a moment of general weariness with corporate clichés across the US and beyond, as resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs grow, and many organizations are reducing the very systems that previously offered change and reform. Burey delves into that terrain to assert that backing away from authenticity rhetoric – specifically, the business jargon that minimizes personal identity as a grouping of aesthetics, idiosyncrasies and hobbies, forcing workers preoccupied with handling how they are seen rather than how they are regarded – is not a solution; rather, we should reinterpret it on our personal terms.

Minority Staff and the Act of Self

Via vivid anecdotes and conversations, Burey illustrates how marginalized workers – people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, women workers, disabled individuals – learn early on to calibrate which self will “pass”. A sensitive point becomes a drawback and people try too hard by attempting to look palatable. The act of “bringing your full self” becomes a display surface on which various types of expectations are cast: affective duties, revealing details and constant performance of gratitude. In Burey’s words, employees are requested to share our identities – but lacking the protections or the confidence to withstand what comes out.

As Burey explains, workers are told to share our identities – but without the protections or the reliance to survive what arises.’

Case Study: The Story of Jason

The author shows this dynamic through the story of Jason, a deaf employee who took it upon himself to teach his colleagues about deaf culture and communication norms. His eagerness to talk about his life – a behavior of candor the office often commends as “authenticity” – briefly made everyday communications easier. However, Burey points out, that improvement was fragile. When personnel shifts erased the casual awareness the employee had developed, the atmosphere of inclusion dissolved with it. “All the information departed with those employees,” he comments exhaustedly. What stayed was the weariness of needing to begin again, of having to take charge for an company’s developmental journey. In Burey’s view, this demonstrates to be told to expose oneself absent defenses: to face exposure in a system that applauds your openness but fails to formalize it into policy. Sincerity becomes a trap when companies count on individual self-disclosure rather than organizational responsibility.

Writing Style and Concept of Dissent

Burey’s writing is simultaneously clear and poetic. She combines scholarly depth with a tone of kinship: a call for followers to participate, to question, to dissent. According to the author, dissent at work is not loud rebellion but ethical rejection – the practice of opposing uniformity in environments that expect gratitude for basic acceptance. To oppose, in her framing, is to interrogate the accounts companies narrate about fairness and acceptance, and to decline engagement in customs that perpetuate unfairness. It might look like naming bias in a discussion, choosing not to participate of unpaid “inclusion” effort, or defining borders around how much of oneself is provided to the institution. Resistance, the author proposes, is an affirmation of self-respect in settings that typically encourage conformity. It is a practice of honesty rather than opposition, a method of maintaining that a person’s dignity is not conditional on institutional approval.

Reclaiming Authenticity

Burey also rejects brittle binaries. Her work does not simply eliminate “genuineness” wholesale: instead, she advocates for its redefinition. For Burey, authenticity is not the unfiltered performance of personality that organizational atmosphere typically applauds, but a more deliberate alignment between one’s values and one’s actions – a honesty that opposes manipulation by corporate expectations. Rather than treating authenticity as a directive to disclose excessively or adjust to sterilized models of transparency, the author encourages audience to keep the elements of it rooted in truth-telling, self-awareness and principled vision. In her view, the objective is not to abandon authenticity but to move it – to transfer it from the boardroom’s performative rituals and to interactions and workplaces where trust, justice and accountability make {