Kellogg's apologizes after a Corn Pops box that some say 'teaches kids racism' ignites fury

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Kellogg's apologizes after a Corn Pops box that some say 'teaches kids racism' ignites fury

kellogg's cereal boxes

Associated Press/John Raoux

Kellogg's cereal boxes.

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  • A Twitter user called out Kellogg's for a Corn Pop box that featured a single "brown" character, who was the janitor.
  • Kellogg's responded that it is changing the design.
  • However, many people have slammed the original Twitter user for being too "politically correct."

Kellogg's is changing its box design after a Twitter user called the company out for a "racist" Corn Pops box.

On Wednesday, Saladin Ahmed‏ tweeted: "hey @KelloggsUS why is literally the only brown corn pop on the whole cereal box the janitor? this is teaching kids racism."

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The tweet went viral. By Thursday morning, it had almost 2,000 likes and more than 800 retweets.

Kellogg's responded to Ahmed, saying that the company "did not intend to offend - we apologize. The artwork is updated & will be in stores soon."

Despite Kellogg's promise to update the boxes, many people attacked Ahmed for being overly sensitive and "politically correct" in his criticism.

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There are more than 2,300 replies to Ahmed's tweet - most of them negative. Ahmed said his mentions were overrun with "slurs and threats."

Ahmed further explained on Twitter that the cereal box design was part of larger problems. He tweeted: "yes its a tiny thing, but when you see your kid staring at this over breakfast and realize millions of other kids are doing the same…"

He also pointed out the irony of people reacting so strongly to a tweet they deemed "over-sensitive."

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