First time visiting Hastings Beach beautiful place, but my experience was ruined by racist abuse

Yesterday I decided to visit Hastings Beach for the first time. I’m from London, and while I’ve unfortunately experienced racism before, I don’t think I’ve ever had anything as blatant as what happened yesterday. It genuinely left me feeling scared and upset.

The first incident happened as we were walking out of the car park. A middle-aged white man drove extremely close to us, close enough that it honestly felt like he could have hit us. As he drove past, he shouted, “P*ki pricks” and “You deserve to die.” It completely shook me and made me feel on edge for the rest of the day.

Later on, another white family called us “immigrants” as we walked past. I know the word itself isn’t inherently offensive, but in that context it was clearly meant as an insult, and it was obvious why they said it.

The sad part is that I genuinely thought Hastings and the beach were beautiful. I’d been looking forward to visiting, but those encounters completely overshadowed what should have been a nice day.

I’m not trying to suggest that everyone in Hastings is like this far from it but it did leave me wondering whether this kind of behaviour is more common there, or whether I was just incredibly unlucky.

I’m just tired of feeling like I have to worry about my safety simply because of my ethnicity. Has anyone else, whether local or a visitor, had similar experiences in Hastings?