In a word, controversial

“Sticks and stones may break my bones/ But names will never hurt me,” runs the classic schoolyard riposte. But names do hurt, after all -- which is the reason for the rhyme -- and words can be “bullets,” as one commentator points out in “The N-Word,” a smart and economical new documentary by Todd Williams, premiering tonight on the Trio cable network.

An accompanying press release describes the word at issue here -- “nigger,” if you somehow don’t know, or its strangely more acceptable variant, “nigga” -- as “easily the most inflammatory” in the English language. And while this is debatable -- there are times, depending on who uses it and with whom, when the word is not inflammatory at all -- it is certainly a most controversial and troublesome noun, its evolving multiplicity of meanings keeping it alive when many would prefer to see it quietly expire. “We take this word that’s been a burden to us,” N.W.A founding member Ice Cube says here, “digest it, spit it back out as ... a badge of honor ... as a defiance.”

Indeed, you are today far, far, far more likely to hear it used by the people it has long been meant to demean, as a term of empowerment or affection -- if you count all the hip-hop records playing in the world right now, it must be the most heard (sometime) derogatory term in history -- a use that some argue is demeaning in itself, the negative freight being in the minds of some impossible to overcome. So while producer Quincy Jones calls the word “a very dangerous animal” and an undeniable “expression of hate,” rapper Talib Kweli points out that “there’s a large segment of black people who grew up hearing the word as nothing but, like, love.” While Richard Pryor, who is covered here at (perhaps disproportionate) length as among the first black artists to appropriate the word for his own use -- it was “part of the toolbox,” says George Carlin, “and [used] like a sledgehammer, not a jeweler’s screwdriver” -- decided after a trip to Africa he’d never use it again.

The film is both scattershot and ambitious, trying to reckon not only the history of a word but of a people -- and not a people in monolithic agreement by any means -- in something under an hour. It’s mostly talking heads, linked by choice archival film clips and a few staged recitations. (Samuel L. Jackson reads from the Oxford English Dictionary the definitions of such terms as nigger jockey, nigger stick and nigger heaven.) The historical footage includes the familiar array of racist punks, preachers and politicians clutching to their pathetic notions of superiority, and it remains shocking, cannot become quaint.

Williams has assembled a wide and weighty array of voices. There are various academics and experts; social critics such as Stanley Crouch and “N-Word” co-executive producer Nelson George; former Black Panther Elaine Brown (“In the Black Panther Party we would not allow our children to use this word at all, any more than curse”); and figures from the stage, screen and the recording arts, including Jackson, Dick Gregory, Chuck D, Chris Rock, Wynton Marsalis, Bryant Gumbel, Whoopi Goldberg, Ving Rhames, Russell Simmons, Nia Long and George C. Wolfe. (We take it for granted that the experiences of celebrities or artists are intrinsically interesting, though any black person could speak to the subject with equal authority.)

Most discuss their experience with a certain detached amusement. (It’s a funny film, overall.) Says Jackson, “I was probably crawling the first time somebody called me ‘nigger.’ It was probably in my house, because I’ve heard it all my life.... I either did something wrong and somebody said, ‘Nigger, stop doing that,’ or somebody said, ‘That’s a cute little nigger.’ ”

Perhaps the only point of agreement on the N-word is that only black people have any right to use it. “This word, it’s like the only thing white people can’t do,” Rock says. “That’s the only reason nobody writes about it or anything. It’s like white people can’t believe there’s a thing that exists they can’t do.” White actor Michael Rapaport observes, “When white people are saying to other white people, ‘What up, nigger?’ and nobody’s getting their [backside] kicked, something’s wrong.” And yet, as Def Jam boss Simmons observes, the white kid who naively hails him, “Yo, my nigga, what’s up?,” “just wants to be your friend, just wants to speak your language.”

“People all over the world,” says playwright-director Wolfe, “they listen to black music, they buy food at McDonald’s, and they know the word.” (That truth is demonstrated here in a jaw-dropping Japanese TV comedy sketch.) Which might be the beginning of the end of it -- “The word to me almost is used up,” Ice Cube says -- but even so the end isn’t in sight. Given these continually shifting terms, “The N-Word” is inevitably less of a summation than a starting point, a subject for further discussion, and all the more valuable for it.

*

‘The N-Word’

Where: Trio

When: Premieres at 9 tonight

Writer, director, Todd Williams. Producers, Helena Echegoyen and Nelson George.