Rachel Dolezal Works in a Salon Doing Weaves and Braiding Hair Now

Read: What We Know About the Dolezal Sex-Abuse Scandal

After making headlines last month for pretending to be an African American, Rachel Dolezal resigned from her position as NAACP chapter president and gave staff writers around the globe something to riff on for a few solid weeks.

Dolezal—who once taught a class on the politics and history of black hair at Eastern Washington University—has now begun taking appointments for braids and weaves after the university refused to renew her contract following the scandal, according to a new interview in Vanity Fair. These weekly appointments have become the only income Dolezal has to make ends meet for herself and her 13-year-old son, Franklin.

Despite all that, she still continues to identify as black and claims she never tried to deceive anybody—though she did try to pass off her older black friend as her father and her adopted black brother as her son, but whatever.

"It's not a costume," Dolezal said in the Vanity Fair piece. "I don't know spiritually and metaphysically how this goes, but I do know that from my earliest memories I have awareness and connection with the black experience, and that's never left me. It's not something that I can put on and take off anymore.

"I wouldn't say I'm African-American," Dolezal continues, "but I would say I'm black, and there's a difference in those terms."

The former NAACP leader says she plans to to write a book so people will stop asking her questions. She's hoping the book will give her a way back into the fight for racial equality, saying "I don't feel like I am probably going to be able to re-enter that work with the type of leadership required to make change if I don't have something like a published explanation."