Jodi-Ann Burey is a writer and critic focused on race, culture, and health equity. Her work appears across literary, business, and arts publications. She is also the creator of Lit Lounge: The People’s Art, a prose and poetry salon, and hosts the Black Cancer podcast.
What’s the big idea?
Authentic challenges the empty corporate promise of “bringing your full self to work.” Instead, it asks us to examine the structural conditions of the workplace, particularly for those most harmed by inequitable policies and performative inclusion. Real care for workers’ wellbeing—especially those at the margins—must be the starting point.
1. Center those most affected.
The phrase “bring your full, authentic self to work” is often used to support diversity and inclusion efforts. Yet people with marginalized identities—Black people and other people of color, disabled workers, women, queer people, and especially those living at the intersections—know that the more we reveal, the more we risk. Companies publicly encourage authenticity while privately perpetuating discrimination and inequity. We cannot understand the workplace without listening to those most impacted by its harms.
2. Collective access is not a “reasonable accommodation.”
As a disabled worker, I needed flexibility to prevent pain and fatigue. Before the pandemic, my workplace resisted remote work and questioned my needs. But when COVID-19 hit, one email shifted the entire workforce to remote operations overnight. What was previously deemed impossible suddenly became standard.
The pandemic revealed that the structures required for accessibility were always achievable. Yet many employers have since rolled back these practices, punishing workers rather than supporting them. Ableism limits all of us.
3. Inequity exists across all sectors.
Mission-driven organizations are not exempt from discrimination and harm. Whether in education, global health, or women-focused startups, I witnessed the same inequitable dynamics that are often blamed solely on corporate culture. When institutions contradict their stated values, workers lose not only trust but also belief in the broader mission of the work.
4. Personal authenticity cannot fix systemic issues.
Self-expression—through clothing, pronouns, hairstyle, or assistive devices—is important, but it does not replace confronting structural problems like unequal pay, surveillance, segregation, racism, sexism, and labor exploitation. Framing authenticity as an individual performance distracts from the systemic conditions that shape work.
5. Community is our greatest strength.
Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) provide community and belonging within workplaces, but they cannot offer the protections of collective power. They are designed to support representation, not to negotiate working conditions or address systemic harm. To be truly authentic at work, we need community, solidarity, and structures that protect workers—not just visibility.