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“I am extremely grateful to Assembly member Bonta and her team for making this important funding available for us to provide better access to the rich history of the Black Panther Party. In the short time since the museum has been opened, the community has embraced us and shared their hunger for exploring the full breadth of this legacy.”
That was Fredrika Newton, widow of Black Panther leader Huey Newton, celebrating the $1.25 million that Mia Bonta, a member of the California Assembly, recently donated to the Black Panther Party Museum in Oakland. The whopper donation wasn’t Bonta’s first sign of dedication to the Panthers. In March of 2023, Bonta honored former Panther Elaine Brown as part of the Women’s Caucus annual celebration of Women’s History Month.
“Elaine Brown is a social justice advocate, story teller, trailblazer, accomplished musician and a strong advocate for communities of color especially when it comes to breaking barriers to employment,” said Bonta. “Elaine is high energy, compassionate and steadfast in her beliefs. Not to mention, has had an amazing career. She was the only woman to ever lead the Black Panther Party, she has spent 25 years advocating for the release of an innocent Black man, who at the age of 13, was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and is currently constructing a 79-unit all-affordable apartment complex in Oakland.” In the Bay area and across the county, people might wonder about this generous donor, so full of praise for the Black Panther Party.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, she started as Mialisa Tania Villafañe, daughter of a single working mother in the Bronx. “Tania” derives from Tamara “Tania” Bunke, “an Argentine who participated in the Cuban revolution and other protests in Latin America alongside Che Guevara.” Bonta’s socialist father and Democrat mother “met as members of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican empowerment group Bonta likened to the Black Panthers.”
Mialisa “won a full-ride scholarship to Yale University” and according to the official state biography, “Mia holds a B.A. in Psychology from Yale University and went on to pursue an Ed.M from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a J.D. from Yale Law School.” It’s not clear whether Mialisa ever earned that JD but she met someone who did, her future husband Rob Bonta, born in the Philippines.
Back in the Bay Area, Rob Bonta gained a seat in the California Assembly, where he was the prime mover of Assembly Bill 2088. That measure would have taxed former Californians 90 percent of their in-state levy in the first year after they left the state and 80 percent in the second year, phasing out over a decade. The Yale law alum believed it was legal to tax non-residents for ten years, so no surprise that Gov. Gavin Newsom tapped Bonta for state attorney general.
In that powerful post, Bonta has sued school districts over a rule that required parents to be notified if their child begins gender transition. On the other hand, Bonta ignored an illegal Chinese bio-lab, jostling with potential pathogens and samples of infectious diseases, which posed a clear and present danger to all Californians.
In 2021, Rob’s wife Mia gained election to the Assembly in the same district where her husband held forth. The “Black Latina”, so eager to praise Elaine Brown, left out some crucial history.
David Horowitz, son of Communist Party members, raised more than $100,000 for the Oakland Community Learning Center, the Black Panther Party’s “showpiece and base of operations throughout the seventies” and hired his friend Betty Van Patter as the school’s bookkeeper. As David learned, the school was “a front for a criminal gang attempting to control the illegal traffic of the East Oakland ghetto.”
On January 17, 1975, Van Patter was found in San Francisco Bay, dead from a blow to the head. At that time Huey Newton had fled to Cuba and the Party leader was Elaine Brown, who denied knowing anything about Van Patter’s disappearance and death. Amara Baltar, Van Patter’s daughter, believes her mother was murdered to be silenced. The case signaled David’s departure from the left, charted at length in Radical Son.
Leftist Democrats have now recast a murderous criminal gang as heroic agents of black empowerment. Around the Bay Area, people wonder if the $1.25 million for the Black Panther Party Museum came from Mia Bonta’s campaign funds, perhaps earmarked by a wealthy donor. If anything was askance, Mia’s attorney general husband will doubtless look the other way, as he did with the illegal Chinese bio-lab. The Yale law alum is seriously considering a run for governor of California, but other possibilities loom large.
If Gavin Newsom somehow makes his way to the White House, Rob Bonta would doubtless be Newsom’s “historic” choice for U.S. Attorney General and wife Mia could run for the House or Senate. The intersectional power couple could ignore illegal Chinese bio-labs, set up a gravy train for the Black Panther Party Museum, and push for a measure taxing Americans for 10 years after they leave the country. As Trump likes to say, we’ll have to see what happens.