In general, proposals for paying reparations are met with outrage. But although it might be seen as intrusive for the federal government to pay women and minorities back for the inequality imposed upon them by centuries of oppression, a new app aims to soften the blow by paying reparations "one bill at a time." Equipay, which was just introduced at 2016 Comedy Hack Day in San Francisco, is meant as a joke, but it's actually sort of brilliant. It's designed to calculate everyone's relative privilege and split bills amongst groups of people accordingly.
To use the app, you must first select the people you're hanging out with—the app helpfully ranks the group's diversity level as "Oscars," "San Francisco startup," or "college brochure." Then you enter the bill's amount and let the app calculate what each member of the group should pay according to his or her race and gender.
Even better, any member of the group (but let's be honest, we're talking about the white guys here) is allowed to "protest" the amount that he or she must pay. The user who protests can choose from a list of options such as "I recognize my privilege" or "this isn't an issue anymore," and the app will generate a response accordingly.
Although the app started out as a spoof, its creators say they're "absolutely planning to release it," probably in early March. To that we say: it's about damn time.
