On the February 14, 2016 edition of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, singer and left-wing activist Harry Belafonte claimed that racism was the reason for the "hurdles" and "problems" President Obama has faced over the past eight years:
“[Barack Obama’s election] awakened a right-wing energy in this country, because nobody really expected that we would ever have elected a black man to be President. And when that reality was established, I think it shocked a lot of racist forces in this country. I think a lot of the hurdles, problems that Obama has faced is really very much based upon the fact that there is a force in this country that says no black man should ever be at the helm of this country.”