I believe I recently read of this problem here at theSwamp, but have had trouble finding the thread. Anyway - in the MTEXT editor, if you click to the right side of the indent/tab ruler, which is above your text, that will brighten up your text, making it the same color as if you used DTEXT. Note that it will also work if you click very close to the ruler above it, or below it, or on its left side, but you can click anywhere to the right of the ruler.