"I WISH we could involve people with racist views in some kind of conversation."

For the umpteenth time I am interviewing a community worker about racist vandalism in Govanhill. I could go back through the archive and count up the exact number of incidents but it would be too disheartening.

Angela Christie is clearly also disheartened. Disheartened, angry, fed up.

Govanhill Youth Group, on the south side of Glasgow, had worked to help create a Black Lives Matter mural to be painted on a public wall in what is one of Scotland's most diverse areas, or "multi-cultural and beautiful," as Angela, who set up the youth club, calls it.

The mural is also beautiful, striking and defiant. It lasted 20 hours before someone defaced it, scrawling over the powerful image of a young woman and a raised fist with white spray paint.

It is not too long since the Roma Holocaust Memorial in nearby Queen's Park was desecrated. For a second time. Racist graffiti was written multiple times at Govanhill Baths. Yet more scratched in phone boxes in the area and on a poster offering support to Govanhill's Irish community.

"Racism is a problem in Govanhill, "Angela told me, "I wish we could set up a meeting [with racists] to explain to them the impact of racism because they clearly don't think it's a problem."

Protests and marches. Online activism. Newspaper columns and blog posts and scrappy back and forths on social media.

Where does it get us? A certain way along the path to common understanding. A certain distance to making political change, though not enough. Certainly not enough under this current government. Is it any wonder that racists feel emboldened when the Secretary of State is, on one hand, telling anecdotes of life as an immigrant in Britain to give herself credibility, but on the other hand introducing hostile immigration policies that paint the "wrong sort" of migrant as a threat to the country's prosperity.

The Home Office yesterday released an advert on Twitter referring to "activist lawyers" abusing EU laws to eek out refugees' time in the UK for as long as possible. “Disrupting returns", the official advert calls it, saying we'll be better off without the "rigidity" of European legislation under Brexit. How on earth does the marketing team look at themselves in the mirror?

I agree with Angela. If only sitting down was an option.

Face to face discussion was also mooted by the new Scottish Conservative leader this week. Douglas Ross says he plans to host a series of roundtable discussions across the country to ask the electorate what its priorities are. Echoing his political stablemate, Rory Stewart, who has taken face-to-face to its extreme by inviting himself into voters' homes for sleepovers, Mr Ross says he wants to actively listen to the people he's been elected to serve.

The MP's motive is to try to "unite the country" and deflate the increasing support for Scottish independence but, in an attempt at willing, the Roundtable Scotland events will involve the campaign group Favor Scotland, whose chief executive Annemarie Ward is a member of the SNP.

Initial quotes from both the politician and the chief executive are heartening. In fact, they are almost idealistic. "That process can only begin by talking to each other, not shouting at each other," Douglas Ross says.

"Even if we won't agree on everything, we can surely all find a way to disagree better - and help our country move forward as a result."

Ms Ward, after saying she has "serious issues" with multiple aspects of Scottish Tory policy, said: "On recovery and drug treatment we have clear disagreements, but there are also areas where we can work together."

Even the Bank of England has been advertising this week that it is coming - virtually - to Scotland next month to host one of its citizen's panels, asking about the cost of living, saving, borrowing, the housing market - all the financial issues affecting people.

At the risk of sounding like a 1990s advertising campaign... shouldn't we talk more? Angela and the Scottish Tory leader and the UK's central bank and are bang on.

The outcome of the Scottish Citizens' Assembly has been delayed by the pandemic with two of its meetings to be rescheduled so we have some wait to see how this organised, large scale conversation will affect the broader political landscape and whether there will be outcomes as positive as those of the citizens' assembly in Ireland.

Of course, even when it came to setting up the Scottish Citizens' Assembly there were quibbles over its neutrality after Joanna Cherry made some inappropriate remarks about it altering people's attitudes towards independence.

When we can't even agree on the premise of an enterprise set up to help us negotiate and navigate thorny issues, what hope have we on the thorny issues themselves?

But our thorny issues aren't going away. Instead, certain topics become increasingly politically toxic. The national conversation about Scottish independence has never quieted but the handling of the coronvirus crisis by the Holyrood and Westminster governments, the looming reality of Brexit and an upcoming election have thrust the issue again to the fore.

The debate about conflict between trans rights and women's rights feels like an adversarial see-saw that will never find balance. The issues of race and immigration, too, are relentlessly fraught.

Those with firm views dig down into increasingly entrenched positions as they feel their values and views to be under threat. Even the simple expression "legitimate concerns" has become a loaded term, suggesting the concerned person is using their queries as a dogwhistle for whatever isms or phobias are relevant to the conversation. Yet many concerns really are legitimate.

The only way to coax people back out is with a willingness to engage and an openness to compromise or even persuasion.

It's right to be optimistic about the results of the citizens' assembly's work but could we have conversations on a more local, personal level?

Back to Govanhill again, where the local housing association held a series of community conversations, open houses on a variety of topics where anyone with an interest could come along to chat about find out more. It lead to a number of new initiatives and plans for the area, and new connections.

In the spirit of finding common ground with those you fundamentally disagree with, Douglas Ross is entirely right that we need to find new ways to disagree with one another. Contentious topics aren't there for raging about on Twitter - they affect people's lives.

Imagine talking, imagine a willingness to compromise. It sounds like utopia when, really, it's easily in reach if we're willing to try it.

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