The Israelites (בני ישראל, Standard: Bnai Yisraʾel; Tiberian: Bnai Yiśrāʾēl; ISO 259-3: Bnai Yiśraˀel) were a Hebrew-speaking people of the Ancient Near East, who inhabited the Land of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods (15th to 6th centuries BCE), later evolving into Jews and Samaritans of the classic period, inhabiting Judea and Samaria respectively. In Modern Hebrew usage, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious community, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites.

The word "Israelite" derives from the Biblical Hebrew word "Israel". Although most literary references to Israelites are located in the Hebrew Bible, there is also abundant non-biblical archaeological and historical evidence of ancient Israel and Judah. The ethnonym is attested as early as the 13th century BCE in an Egyptian inscription. The Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from yisra "to prevail over" or "to struggle/wrestle with", and el, "God, the divine". The eponymous biblical patriarch of the Israelites is Jacob, who wrestled with God who gave him a blessing and renamed him "Israel" because he had "striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." (Genesis 32:24-32) According to the Hebrew Bible, Israelites were the "chosen people" of God. The name Hebrews is sometimes used synonymously with "Israelites". The Qurʾānic term is for Israelites is Banī Israʾīl (children of Israel).

Montel Brian Anthony Williams (born July 3, 1956) is an American television personality, radio talk show host and actor. He is best known as host of the long-running The Montel Williams Show, and more recently as a spokesperson for the Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA). Williams is also active with the non-profit MS Foundation, which he founded after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999.

Williams was born in Baltimore, Maryland. As a resident of Glen Burnie, Maryland, he was bused to Andover High School in neighboring Linthicum, Maryland where he was elected president of both his junior and senior classes. He was a good student, athlete and musician and active in county-wide student government issues in Annapolis, Maryland. His father, Herman Williams, Jr., was a firefighter who in 1992 became Baltimore's first African-American Fire Chief. Montel has five siblings including his 52 year old brother James.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 3, 1956, Williams enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps upon graduating high school in 1974. He went to boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina, where he was promoted to platoon guide. After basic training, he was sent to the Desert Warfare Training Center at Twentynine Palms, California.

House Negro (also House Nigger) is a pejorative term for a black person, used to compare someone to a house slave of a slave owner from the historic period of legal slavery in the US. The term comes from a speech, Message to the Grass Roots, given by African American activist Malcolm X, where he explains that during slavery, there were two kinds of slaves: "house Negroes," who worked in the master's house and "field Negroes," who performed the manual labor outside. He characterizes the house Negro as having a better life than the field Negro, and thus unwilling to leave the plantation, and potentially more likely to support existing power structures that favor whites over blacks. Malcolm X identified with the field Negro. The term is used against individuals, in critiques of attitudes within the African American community, and as a borrowed term for critiquing parallel situations.

Malcolm X Speaks, George Breitman, ed. (New York: Grove Weidenfeld Publishers, 1990). ISBN 0-8021-3213-8