Inadvertently racist or meant for humour?

I saw Raiders yesterday. This is the first Indiana Jones that I have seen, and I am unfamiliar with the adventure comedy genre. At first I was a bit surprised by the fact that all the "natives" in the film - whether in South America, Nepal or Egypt - were either cowardly, traitorous, gullible or dispensable. The one token exception was Sallah. I wondered whether Spielberg depicted the natives in this way to humorously acknowledge the prevalent trope in older adventure movies, or whether he was simply unaware of the racist undertones. My overall feeling is that the depiction of the natives was tongue-in-cheek, like much of the rest of the movie. I'd be interested to know others' opinions.