Comment 7 for bug 595432

The bug with "Arial Black" defaulting back to "Arial +Bold" is still happening for me. :(

Inkscape 0.48.4 r9939
Windows 7 x64

However, there is a workaround inside of Inkscape to get Arial Black to work for the text your working on:
1. Type your text.
2. Try to select Arial Black. (Inkscape instead selects Arial +Bold)
3. Edit > XML Editor
4. Once the XML editor opens, it should be opened on your text. So, on the left part of the the XML screen, expand the "svg:text" arrow to display the "svg:tspan" part.
5. once you've done that, go to the right side of the XML screen and select the "style" Attribute.
6. Now, find the following text "font-family:Arial", and add " Black" after "Arial" (don't forget the space between the two words).

And there you go, you now have "Arial Black" loaded and working for your text selection.

Still, I have to admit, this workaround is annoying even though it does work. So, I'd love to see this text bug fixed by the time that 0.49 comes out if possible (or even 0.48.5 if the fix can easily be backported with no problems).