the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the

Columbia's Uzondinma Iweala -- author of Beast of No Nation on child soldiers -- argues in the Washington Post today that the West needs to move past seeing itself as the savior of a dark and despondent African, stop trying to cleanse its soul of its misdeeds by redeeming what it sees as a poor and struggling continent. Among the more misguided attempts of the western world to identify with and thus rescue Africa, writes Iweala, is a campaign that you might have seen in magazines and on bus stop shelters -- Keep a Child Alive's "I am African" campaign that featured the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Elijah "Frodo" Wood marked up to look like some technicolor cartoon version of "African." Says Iweala: