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My background color is black. For headers and side menus I use tables colored gray with black text on them. This gives a neat "cutout" look without using graphics. It just kind of hit me today that Google (and other engines) might see this as black text on a black background even though the cell I've put the text in is gray and is clearly visible and penalize for hidden text.
I've seen the million threads around here on hidden text but don't recall reading about this possible scenario anywhere along the way.