It’s the end of the year, which means you are being barraged by requests to give. Whether it is your alma mater, your church, a charity you gave to once upon a time — even a long, long time ago — you are getting repeated requests to give. Giving Tuesday this year is Dec. 2, and the encouragement to give is not a bad thing.

The Giving Tuesday concept began in 2012, when the United Nations Foundation and New York’s 92nd Street Y, a Jewish cultural and community center in New York, saw it as relief from the rampant consumerism that defines this so-called holy season. The frenzy begins on or before Black Friday, where in the past fools lined up to score bargains on electronics, sometimes so frantically that they rushed into big-box stores, stampeding guards and fellow consumers. It continues to Cyber Monday, where people are encouraged to buy online. Giving Tuesday is an attempt to center on giving, not spending. It has even spun into a nonprofit organization that encourages giving. 

Let’s put this in context, though. Black people are givers. Proportionately we give more than most. We give because that’s how we got over. From mutual aid societies during and after the enslavement period through the fried chickens and pound cakes that sustained our historically Black colleges and universities “back in the day” (and even now), giving is a core value for African American people. We don’t necessarily need the nudge to give on Giving Tuesday. Black folks always give, even when we have less than the majority community does. Instead, this day serves as a reminder that most philanthropy reflects the structural inequity that defines our predatory capitalistic society. And Giving Tuesday focuses on collective philanthropy, which includes giving money, time, advocacy or support to those in need. Right now, with the global, national and local challenges we face, the spirit of Giving Tuesday is important now more than ever. 

Let’s not overlook the inherent inequality in the philanthropic space. Charity can relieve symptoms, but it cannot repair structural inequality. The roots of the racial wealth gap — land theft, labor exploitation, exclusion from credit, and racially targeted policy — go far deeper than any one day of goodwill can touch. 

Still, Giving Tuesday offers an important window. It calls us to remember that philanthropy is not the exclusive province of billionaires. Black communities have always given out of necessity, solidarity and survival. We gave when the Freedmen’s Bureau failed us. We gave when federal farm policy dispossessed Black farmers. We gave through churches, benevolent societies, burial clubs, freedom schools, mutual aid and community defense. Our giving was not episodic; it was infrastructural. It kept our communities alive when state violence sought to extinguish them. 

Giving Tuesday becomes not just a day of donations but a chance to interrogate where our dollars go, why our communities still need so much, and how we can align generosity with justice. Instead of reacting only to crises, we can think strategically — supporting organizations fighting voter suppression, advocating for reparations, training Black economists, building cooperative enterprises and holding policymakers accountable for the inequities they continue to produce. 

Charity alone cannot undo the legacy of lynching culture, economic envy and policy violence — central forces in the theft of Black land and Black futures. But a day that encourages Americans to pause the spending frenzy and consider generosity is not without value. We can reclaim Giving Tuesday as not just an appeal from nonprofits but an invitation to reflect: How do we build the world we deserve? What might generosity look like when it centers systemic repair, not performative benevolence? 

Giving Tuesday began as a social media campaign. It has become, at its best, a moment of collective pause. Use it — whether by giving, advocating or simply asking harder questions about how our nation allocates abundance. Generosity guided by justice is not just charity. It is strategy. So if you are African American and you participate in Giving Tuesday, give Black. If you are an ally and concerned with social and economic justice, give Black. If you care about historical inequities, give Black. Really, you never need an excuse or a reason to give Black. 

The writer is an economist and author.