Hostin said she filed a police report after she and friends were verbally assailed by some 20 youths at a beachfront rental house.
"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin is the latest victim of harassment she claims was because of her race.
“They were yelling things like 'This is America! We are patriots!'" she told Inside Edition Monday.
It happened on the Fourth of July as Hostin and her friends were celebrating the holiday at a beachfront rental house in the historically African-American enclave of Azurest in Sag Harbor, located on New York’s Long Island.
The small community was founded in the early 1950s. At the time, it was the only place where black Americans were allowed to buy beachfront property in America. It's long been considered a place of pride and refuge.
But that wasn't what Hostin experienced as she marked July 4 with friends.
“We heard kids on the beach and they started yelling the N-word at us because they could clearly see us," she told Inside Edition. "It was so shocking because in 12 years or more nothing like that has ever happened. That beach has always been our safe haven."
She shot video moments after the incident in which she confronted some people on the beach. The clip was played on "The View" Monday morning.
“Were you the ones yelling the N-word?" she is heard asking the group.
"Oh, no there was someone else," one person in the group replied.
After a conversation with the person, "The View" host accused them of "harassment."
"We engaged them and said, 'Are you calling us the N-word? This is harassment.' They denied saying it, but they didn't deny it was said," Hostin told Inside Edition.
Hostin called the police and filed a police report.
It is just the latest in a list of incidents in which black people have been harassed for doing ordinary activities. The most recent was a man dubbed "Pool Patrol Paul" after he called the cops on a black woman because he didn't think she and her child belonged to his "members-only" pool.
Hostin said what she heard was not some drunken rants from people on the beach but “intentional," adding, "they sought us out in an African-American community. That is supposed to be our haven where we bring our families and they were ugly and they were hate-filled. That is inexcusable."
RELATED STORIES
