It was reported this month (“‘Those monkeys’: racist remarks surface in taped 1971 conversation between Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon”, August 1) that when he was governor of California in 1971, Ronald Reagan phoned the White House to express his political virulence to then president Richard M. Nixon. “To see those, those monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!” Reagan said, to laughter from Nixon. In a subsequent call to a White House official, Nixon, in recounting his conversation with Reagan, described African delegates to the United Nations as “cannibals”. Did we really need this audio recording to know that Reagan held racially motivated views about politics, the economy and culture? So many of his policies and official statements appeared to be motivated by racial ideology and thinly veiled alignments with the goals of white supremacy. There was his woefully inadequate – at times openly hostile – response to the Aids epidemic. When he finally decided to address the crisis, he scapegoated blacks and homosexuals. Reagan’s immense and catastrophic “war on drugs” had a disproportionate impact on the lives of minorities living in America and all over the world. In this country, people of colour faced higher numbers of arrests and longer prison sentences. Reagan also spent lavishly on starting and engaging in proxy wars throughout Latin America, including brutal civil wars in countries such as El Salvador and Nicaragua. His battle may have been with the Soviet Union but he mainly invested his military powers in killing black and brown people who wanted to choose their own form of governance. Trump’s year of chaos manifests in bad policies and worse politics Nearly every day the message from the Reagan White House was that race is no excuse or explanation for poverty. Slogans such as “just say no” were coupled with theories of trickle-down economics and a push to swing the courts dramatically to the right. It did not matter if Reagan viewed himself as a racist, or if his followers believed that he was a racist. What mattered was the effect those policies had on people of colour. The consequences were severe and long-lasting. The recent reports on Reagan reminded me of US President Donald Trump’s referring to Haiti and other countries as “ s***hole countries ”. What are the effects of Trump’s policies on people of colour in America today, such as the assault on social services, including food stamps? How does Trump’s “send them back” rhetoric affect people who have ancestral roots beyond these shores? How do bans on Muslims flying into and out of America impact those who have a darker complexion and wear non-Western clothing? How does separating babies from their mothers at the border traumatise these families and communities? Where are the voices of diversity in Trump’s cabinet? Who of any import is left other than Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development? Trump fans can chant ‘send her back’, but Asia cannot afford such racism Is Trump a racist? Does it matter? His policies are. His words are. His attitude towards people of colour is disrespectful, to say the least. Do we need to find an audio recording of him using the “N-word” to prove he’s racist? I hope not. We didn’t need Reagan’s recorded conversation with Nixon. His policies spoke volumes. George Cassidy Payne, Rochester, New York