obtain political and economic power for themselves. Intraracial racism among black people Such views of black people led some within the black community – particularly light-skinned black people – to try to escape the associations of being black in white society. Many consciously or unconsciously accepted a white-dominated racial hierarchy and a bias against other black people. This meant that black people were not only victims of anti-black racism, but in some instances, also perpetrators of it. Black people who held such bias maintained that assimilating with whites could bolster their appeals for equal treatment. Therefore, they geographically and socially removed themselves from other black people, trying to gain the social acceptance of whites, supposing that if black people were "more respectable,", "well behaved", "more well-to-do", and so on, they would incur less resentment and racism. However, this strategy for obtaining equal treatment usually backfired, as such black people found themselves ostracized by both whites, who labeled them "uppity", and black people, who labeled them "Uncle Toms". They received marginally better treatment from whites in exchange for helping to keep other black people "in their place", and also for being "tokens" whose limited presence allowed whites to mute accusations of racism thrown against them. Such black people were often in positions of authority and stature including police officers, businessmen and politicians; however, when whites felt threatened that they might have to compete politically or economically with black men, such as elections or during periods of unemployment, wage instability, or high crime such as what occurred in the Springfield region throughout 1907–1908, during the mine strikes and Panic of 1907, white men became increasingly hostile to black people, especially those who wielded positions of stature and authority: The "menace" in Springfield 1908 was an election year in Springfield. The city had been plagued with rampant political corruption, for 20 years, when Indiana's "Blocks of Five" voting system was introduced to the community, enabling a vice ring to dominate local affairs. White politicians, looking to secure votes, began "buying" votes from black men in exchange for legal immunity, allowing vice in the black saloon district to thrive. The politicians also "bought" votes in the white saloon districts, but negative labeling of black men had framed their corruption as being "more" harmful, "more" dangerous, and "more" lawless than the same corruption from whites, despite black people owning less than 3 percent of the