With the rhetoric having been so hot and divisions among us so stark in the past year or so, getting an opportunity to engage in some serious and hopefully heartfelt discussions between people across racial, ethnic and economic lines can be viewed as a very useful thing.

The city’s latest round of its Community Conversations Series kicked of on Monday at Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church, where a small group of residents gathered to discuss race and racism and perhaps learn some things about themselves and others in their community.

The series will continue through the month of October, with meetings scheduled at various venues throughout the city, with each of the seven wards being represented in turn. Dates and locations of the meetings can be found online on the city’s website (www.somervillema.gov).

While not intended to serve a multitude of participants, those who choose to show up and participate may find meaningful discourse and good fellowship at any or all of the scheduled events.

Few would disagree that more understanding and tolerance is needed between people of all ethnicities, especially in consideration of the tensions that have developed between law enforcement authorities and the African American community.

Small-scale events such as this cannot hope to provide solutions to the bigger problems that society paces, but they can represent a beginning. Perhaps in the long term they can serve as a model to take the dialogue farther, which seems like a very worthwhile thing.