Configure your xterm colours

.Xresources

!
! For all [xa]term,put this in your
! ~/.Xdefaults or ~/.Xresources:
!

! Defaults for all xterm clients
XTerm*background:   black
XTerm*foreground:   gray
! XTerm*highlightColor:  white
! XTerm*highlightTextColor: black
! The next controls whether the highlighted text stays colour (0:y 1:n)
XTerm*highlightColorMode: 0
XTerm*highlightReverse: 0
XTerm*highlightSelection: 1

! Then run
!
!   xrdb ~/.Xresources
!