The term was common parlance in the 1960s, but its origins are the problem, says Mr Agbetu. It comes from the ideology of racism, that white people are white, and everyone else is somehow other coloured. It fails to recognise that everyone has an ethnicity and is an inadequate "one-size-fits all" description.
Nor was it a term chosen by those it refers to, but instead imposed by the wider - and white - society.
Those who still use the term tend to be from older generations, he says, but adds that if they knew the history of the word, perhaps they would think again.