Is Woolf really so different from all the other Dead White Men?

I, like some others it seems, was looking forward to Woolf being an entirely non-racist writer. However, I was initially disappointed by page 54 when he describes the people of Jaffna and Haambantota kachcheris as

nearer than we are to primitive man and there are many nasty things about primitive man...They live so close to the jungle that they retain some thing of the litheness and beauty of jungle animals...They do not conceal their individuality any more than their beggars conceal their appalling sores and ulcers and monstrous malformations.

Lest someone say I quote out of context, here Woolf compares the native favourably against the white man who "live..behind our lace curtains in the image...of the rubber stamp and the machine" (Woolf, 54). He celebrates the natives "animal" qualities as opposed to the functional, non-instinctual lives of the Europeans who also have the "desires and passions of the primitive man" (Woolf, 53), but are too inhibited by the superego (Woolf, 54).

Arguably, comparing natives to beautiful jungle animals may not be that insulting in a technical sense. However, I fail to see how it is in any way flattering that their "individuality" is compared to a beggar totally honest about displaying his "appalling sores and ulcers and monstrous malformations", images all associated with disease. Woolf also falls into the thought which associates the land with certain qualities which then "infect" the peoples - people who live near the jungle behave like jungle animals. What I'm saying is this: even as Woolf claims to celebrate the native, his language seems to undercut the content - i don't know if this a subconscious racism or a product of the cultural framework and language norms in which the imperialist functions.