-- the University of Oklahoma student
from Dallas who was expelled this week
after leading racist chants in a notorious
fraternity video.
This story is about the other Parker Rice
-- the one who attends OU’s archrival,
Oklahoma State, and grew up just a few
miles from the OU campus. The one
who's also getting vilified on social media.
On Monday morning, his roommate woke
him up and told him to check his phone.
There were 500 comments on his
Instagram account, 50 private messages on
Facebook and a ridiculous number of calls
from friends, family, The Washington Post,
Inside Edition and local media in
Oklahoma.
As he puts it: “It’s a great day to be
named Parker Rice."
This Parker Rice is also in a fraternity,
Alpha Phi Omega, at Oklahoma State.
Plus he’s from Norman, where the other
Parker Rice made headlines. This one
doesn’t like a lot of attention. He plays
tennis, builds robots, and is still studying
for his listening and writing exam in
elementary Japanese.
“My first thought was that someone
hacked my account," he says. "Initially, it
was kind of scary, to not know what I
did to bring all of this hate to myself. ...
It's definitely been stressful. But I guess I
take a lighter view of the comments, and
be happy it's not directed at me."
But that’s not easy when strangers call
him a liar, accusing him of pretending to
be a different Parker Rice. You’re pathetic,
said one Instagram user. Another told
Price he was so ugly it hurt. One user
wished Price would get run over.
There were worse messages. And some
funny ones with horrible misspellings. He’s
received a few apologies, but people still
think he’s the guy in the video.
"I do think it's wrong," he says. "And it
shouldn't be happening. And from the
looks of it, we have a lot of work to
do, if as a community we want to
change that."
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