The idea that this should not "beat a dead horse" is my main problem here. There should be powerful disincentives to be a racist in society. Letting this quietly drop is the absolute worst way to handle this. It should be more than a "footnote".
Look, anytime the phrase "cancel culture" enters the lexicon here as a negative for social good, I am going to have a problem with it. Like it or not, "cancel culture" has existed for all of humanity. When you do something so utterly unpalatable, there is a price to pay for it. 60 years ago, something like being black and eating at a white person's lunch counter would get you "canceled" by the friendly neighborhood watch organization via hanging from a tree, or getting beaten within inches of your life as a "warning". We cancelled people for wanting equal education, equal workplace opportunity. We cancelled people for wanting to live in the good and insurable neighborhoods, the ones you were allowed to get mortgages for. We cancelled people for being the wrong religion by not letting them into the good clubs and organizations. We cancelled people for wanting to sit to near the front of the bus. We cancelled people for wanting to marry the wrong people, loving the wrong race, same sex, or any other "acceptable" standard. We have the sane people screaming about "Cancel Culture" out here today wanting to cancel Disney for not being for legalized forms of discrimination, and any member of their own party who isn't acting sufficiently loyal to said party.
We have used the power of cancellation forever, and it ONLY became a problem when the people of power then became subject to a fraction of the standards that those who were blocked from power had.
Yeah, I am not going to feel sorry for Josh Donaldson getting run through the public wringer for a while, nor will I feel back for the next Josh Donaldson.