...at least they don't use the first stanza, which mentions Tusca... Tusca...
um, that other city to the west...
As to the overall album this is from, it's a quite complex one - remember, this came out in '74, not all that far removed from the civil rights era - actually still somewhat within it, I guess (I'm NOT a historian). The whole album is a 'concept/theme' of sorts, and is truly not an easy listen, but DOES provoke conversation (as we have seen here) as to injustice from several angles.
And actually, I never thought of this song as THAT bad of a indictment of B'ham, although the dog stanza IS a little more than subtle... but I always thought he could have made it a LOT more of an indictment on the city considering the climate at the time.
Newman primarily writes in 'third person', which makes things a bit more 'complex', especially given the topic at hand - his biggest 'pre-Toy Story' hit was 'Short People', and he took a lot of heat from that - noting he was only 5'-6" and probably writing with regards to his own experiences as much as anything.
But as to OUR situation, yeah, just do the chorus if at all... I'd honestly rather just 86 it.