Learie Joseph: Child abuse no laughing matter

Child abuse is no laughing matter for top local comedian Learie Joseph. “You see me, most of the times I have on a blue shirt and a khaki pants,” Joseph said. “That little boy you see on stage is Learie Joseph because that little boy tells his parents everything they’re supposed to know. It tells big people everything that they did not hear me say when I was little.

“It also helps me to lend my voice to the children today who are being abused and messed up by all kinds of people. “I put that blue shirt and khaki pants on and I tell you I get to say what I want to say and the children who are sitting in front the auditorium clap me and they agree with me.” He said children shouldn’t have to worry about such weighty matters when growing up.

Joseph was speaking at the staging of the “Inheritance: The  Elders’ Lecture Series: Technicians of Humour,” at City Hall, Knox Street, Port-of-Spain. The event, the third in the Inheritance series, was staged by the Artists’ Coalition of T&T (ACTT) in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and the Economy in commemoration of T&T’s 50th Anniversary of Independence.

Other elder exponents in comedy present were Dennis “Sprangalang” Hall, Tony Deyal, Raymond Choo Kong, Shirley “Beulah” King, John Agitation, Paul Keens-Douglas and Tommy Joseph, along with “master apprentices” BC Pires, Jones Geet, Kevin Baldeosingh and “Crazy Catholic” Sheldon Narine.

Joseph said he could not in good conscience bow to certain promoters’ demands that he get rid of the schoolboy persona in his comedy act, which he uses as a medium to convey the serious message about child abuse. He said he refuses to wear “poom poom” shorts (cycle shorts) and engage in lewd performances and would rather keep his integrity as he also had to consider families who bring their children to his shows.