I don't think @mathukuma is obsessed. He is just reinforcing what The Late Frederick Chiluba told us. Africa is not hopeless. We only started the civilisation process 100 years ago. I dare say thanks to the whites.
In trying to be at par with the developed world(economy, democracy, human rights etc), we are trying to do what they've done in centuries in just a few decades!
I was reading about the Ku Klux Klan. There were enough cases of pre-election violence in USA just 100 years ago mainly by the Klan against blacks but also by other groups. From Ben Carson's books I can see that many Americans, especiallly blacks were totally uneducated 70 years ago!
More recently, we had Gerry Adams' Irish Republican Army wrecking havoc in Britain. These people came to a truce where even terrorists(or freedom fighters depending on where you stand) were released in a peace pact.
Granted, we shouldn't relax and should aim for the skies but this thing of people trying to make us feel hopeless is wrong. You go to States, Japan, UK etc and start thinking your fellow Africans are a cursed lot for not having the kind of life that is available there. You forget that for centuries, the people of those countries underwent probably worse situations than us.