You can actually read up on the intentions and context of both the original director, M. Cooper, and Jackson at kongiskong.net, which includes a production diary for the latest version and some history on the first film.

Jackson actually was attempting to deracialize the natives, which was sort of respectfully coping out. I haven't seen the film, but my beef would be the fact that have a 1920s/1930s New York and no black people, but people would've complained if the only black cast were shoeshiners too.