Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

The “authenticity conundrum” refers to uneasiness about being appreciated only as a representative member of a minority community. The difficulty is in balancing one’s membership in a social group—and enjoying the spirit of fellowship and commonality arising from that belonging—against one’s individuality, which is more expansive than a simple understanding of oneself as an “other.”

This is a term used by Abrams’s mother to describe the family’s economic status. She preferred this descriptor to others like “working class” or “working poor” because it ascribed the family more dignity and suggested the premium they placed on education. As Abrams says about her family’s economic situation, “[W]e had little money, but we read books and watched PBS” (27).

Because power, in Abrams’s estimation, is a rigged game controlled by the victors, if members of minority groups want to gain power, they must elbow their way onto the field. In her terms, they must “hack” the system, “figuring out how to circumvent the traditional systems and own opportunity” (93). In practice, this means first accepting that the game is not a fair one and that playing according to the conventional rules will not guarantee a victory. Instead, one must devise unconventional means to achieve the same ends.