One of Maya Rupert's earliest life lessons was learning how to be inauthentic. That performance-the ability to make white people feel comfortable about race and their own racism-has perversely conferred upon her everything from safety and acceptance to professional success and social capital. As only the third Black woman in history to run a presidential campaign, Rupert had to lead a campaign built by 'The Authentic Black Queen' but run by the 'Cool Black Girl.' In doing so, she came to realise that in walking this tightrope of expectations, that there is no room for our real selves. In The Real Ones, Rupert interrogates the bind that people of colour find themselves in when strategic inauthenticity becomes a survival mechanism. In this deeply relatable book, Rupert weaves together pop culture and politics, workplace advice and personal stories, to validate the contradictions experienced by those of us who have been shaped by inauthenticity. She shares the off-camera experiences on the presidential campaign trail, where she saw alarming new double standards emerge in a post-Obama political landscape. She takes on the rabid fandoms of Taylor Swift and Beyonce to share insights in what we expect from our biggest stars-one is admired as the authentic girl next door, the other is required to be a queen. She exposes the trap too many face in the workplace, when we are asked to bring our full selves to work-but not too much. Rupert sees a world where success is at the expense of our authenticity, not because of it. With candour and compassion, she examines how we negotiate who we need to be in any given situation, and our resentment that we have to do so in the first place. The Real Ones offers an entirely fresh take on race-that authenticity is a privilege inaccessible to people of colour. When we are constantly confronted with the question, 'Who do you think you are?' we cannot ask ourselves 'Who am I?' unburdened by dominant expectations. In the end, Rupert frees readers from the paradox of authenticity, with a liberating perspective, so that readers can stop questioning who we are, and finally thrive.
