Like many NBA players, members of the defending world champion Golden State Warriors have some reservations about the way that the current president, Donald Trump, discusses issues of race and/or retweets Twitter users who use the handle “White Genocide.” When star Warriors point guard Stephen Curry said in September that he and his teammates were considering a boycott of the traditional championship-team White House visit, Trump immediately announced that they were not invited. This week, the team is in Washington for a Wednesday night game against the Washington Wizards, and they’ve now announced what they’ll be doing instead of a photo op with the president:
Golden State Warriors will celebrate their championship in D.C. today by touring the African American Museum with students from Seat Pleasant, the hometown of Kevin Durant.
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) February 27, 2018
That’d be the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which happens to be one of the closest Smithsonian buildings to the White House.* (Seat Pleasant is just a few miles east in Maryland.) The New York Times wrote last May that the museum has become popular with visiting athletes; for his part, Trump has of course noted that museum subject Frederick Douglass “has [sic?] done a terrific job that is being recognized by more and more people.”
Correction, 1:30 p.m.: This post originally misstated that the Museum of African American History is the closest Smithsonian building to the White House, a statement which overlooked the Renwick Gallery.