An Un-Calibrated Centrifuge

I'm only 15 pages in, but I think I have to stop reading for now. I was not prepared for the racism/prejudice in the book.

I almost quit at the first mention of Native Americans:

First there were Indians, an inferior breed without energy, inventiveness, or culture, a people that lived on grubs and grasshoppers and shellfish, too lazy to hunt or fish. They ate what they could pick up and planted nothing. They pounded bitter acorns for flour. Even their warfare was a weary pantomime.

I kept reading just in case this passage was a fluke (or proved to be important to the story somehow/refuted), but then I got to this bit about "a Negro girl":

He planned to cut off her ears and her nose with his pocketknife and get his money back. Carving on his wooden leg, he showed his friends how he would cut her. “When I finish her she’ll be a funny-looking bitch,” he said. “I’ll make her so a drunk Indian won’t take out after her.” 

Maybe these are the only two blatantly racist passages in the book. Maybe there is a point to these two passages. Maybe the book gets better. I just don't feel like reading on to find out.