Type White at BlogTyme responded to my confusion. Her point isn't a sociological one, but a marketing one.

Delicately  is perhaps not the best word to use to describe what I mean but I still stand by what I said. It think niche award blogs are a great way to show exposure so when you do walk up to someone at a conference they aren't surprised. Let me give you an example of what I went through. I used to have a popular gaming site. I suppose my race and gender didn't come across on my site, just as it probably didn't here until recently. I attended a conference where I arranged, in advance, to meet with some people (and interview them), which were all men because there weren't many women gamers then. Overall the race thing went really well except for one man. He blatantly told me he didn't realize I was female AND black. I would have a hard time achieving anything as a female but being a black female, forget it. He refused to do the interview and to be frank, he pissed me off because he was  the  person I wanted to interview. He was a high profile developer and as he pointed out, I was lucky to land the interview in the first place. This put me in an awkward position because I announced that I was interviewing him.

Of course there IS a sociological issue in there...the one that made me wonder why "offend[ing] the majority" was something I should be sensitive to.

Ms. White's response?

I think we've all been in this type of situation before where you want to speak out on something but you can't afford to anger the person because it can do more damage than good. So I came up with a plan, implemented it and in a short period of time he needed me…the tables were turned, he had to eat those words, and I got the satisfaction of telling exactly what I thought of him, doing things on my terms, without jeopardizing everything I d work for. I'm all about principle but I'm not impulsive and I'm not stupid.

I tip my hat.

My parallel issue came in the form of corporate meetings. Whenever I got involved in a new project there was always at least one person, usually the most senior one, that wanted to not see me. By the end of the meeting I always had both acknowledgement and respect.

See, Corporate America is feudal as hell. if you're in management they don't care how the area you're responsible for does what it needs to as long as it does...and they don't care what else you do with the crew either. So what you have to do is get feudal on they ass...let no one have any part in your procedural decisions and take no part in theirs. This way they MUST approach you when your crew's functionality is involved.

But you have to understand that excellence is only a defensive move. You have to actually make the decisions, prove your authority. And you have to be a bit artful...like explaining that your bosses' way works, but this exceptional situation (which may or may not be exceptional) means your way is correct this time (and every time). When they yield regularly to your judgment you have established your own power base...a far different thing than being granted control.