Oprah Audience Cheers as Doctor Calls for ‘Pink Shirts and Energy’ for Women of Color
A new episode of The Oprah Podcast sparked a loud reaction when Dr. Kameelah Phillips argued that women of color accused or convicted in similar cases have not received the same public sympathy as Lindsay Clancy.
The episode, titled “The Lindsay Clancy Case, Understanding Postpartum Psychosis,” was taped in Massachusetts before an audience that included medical experts, legal voices, and women who said they had experienced postpartum psychosis.
Phillips, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist, said the public response surrounding Clancy should raise questions about who receives compassion, attention, and organized support. She pointed to differences in access, education, and privilege while calling for the same energy on behalf of women who do not look like Clancy.
“I want us to have the same passion for people who don’t look like Lindsay, who don’t have the same access… her education, her melanin, her privilege,” Phillips said.
“There are women of color sitting around this country in prisons for the same thing we never heard of. I just wanna remind us to have the pink shirts and the energy for them as well.”
The studio audience cheered and applauded after Phillips made the appeal.
WATCH:
The comments came as the public debate over the Clancy case continued. Three children died: Cora was 5, Dawson was 3, and Callan was 8 months old. According to the source report, Clancy admitted that she strangled the children with exercise bands in the basement of the family’s Duxbury, Massachusetts, home on January 24, 2023. She then slashed herself and jumped from a second-story window. She is paralyzed from the waist down.
Clancy’s trial ended in a mistrial after a hung jury, and prosecutors say they will retry her. That legal development has kept attention focused on both the criminal case and the public campaign surrounding it.
The source report described hundreds of women wearing matching pink shirts at the Plymouth courthouse in support of Clancy. They formed hearts with their hands, recited the Lord’s Prayer, and treated defense attorney Kevin Reddington as a folk hero. Phillips’ remarks on Oprah’s podcast directly challenged that kind of highly visible support, arguing that women of color in comparable situations have not seen the same national response.
The report also cited Joe Rogan, who said the women supporting Clancy might feel differently if they had to look at the vacant eyes of the children whose last sight on earth was their mother choking them.
Fr. Dan Reehil, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena in Columbia, Tennessee, offered an even harsher reaction. He said people should pray for Clancy, but he condemned the women rallying behind her.
“Yes, I understand she was on all these drugs and all the other things. Seek help. You’re a grown woman. This is a catastrophe that one, that this thing happened at all, and we should pray for her. I think she has demons, to be honest. But these women that are behind her—insanity is reigning in many places,” he said.
He continued:
“If you’re dating a woman right now who is a supporter of this woman who killed her children, cut bait and run for your life. Because one day you’ll be having kids with her, and she thinks this is okay. I’m serious. That’s a big impediment for me in a marriage.”
The competing reactions show the sharp divide surrounding the case. Phillips is demanding equal public concern for women of color in similar circumstances, while critics of the pink-shirt campaign say sympathy must not erase the deaths of the three children.