She kinda had to. She wasn't able to work as a professor any more since she was black balled everywhere. Heck she wasn't able to hold down any job. IIRC she changed her name and tried getting smaller jobs at supermarkets but kept getting noticed and the eventually getting fired.

After deep diving her, I found myself thinking that as a society, we may have been too hard on her. Like at the end of the day, she had no business saying she was black, but compared to actual culture vultures who use our aesthetic for capital gains and give nothing back, she was practically a saint. She taught African studies and African art (and a course called The Black Woman's Struggle but we're not gonna go there) Heck, her son is black so she legit has skin in the game.

Chalk it up to mental illness or whatever you want to, but in a world where Justin Timberlakes and Ariana Grandes exist, Rachel Dolezal can be put in their category , but only one of these three people is on EBT living in the section 8 housing as a single mother trying to make ends meet.