Comment 12 for bug 421261

> X's default background for xterm is white; Debian sets it to black.
> Redhat and some others leave it as white. (I generally prefer black,
> since color contrasts work better against black).

I prefer black too. I guess the issue here is, what colour does Ubuntu want it to be for an xterm and a uxterm? I would have thought that /etc/X11/app-defaults/XTerm-color having these lines:

  ! Set the default text foreground and background colors.
  *VT100*foreground: gray90
  *VT100*background: black

suggests that black is what's intended. If that's the case we have a bug. I'm a little unsure now though, maybe they just want xterm's to be white by default and the above doesn't apply for some reason.