from this thread:
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/swing-dev/2017-November/007904.html
> Hi All,
>
> Last couple of days I've been trying to root out this bug -
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openjdk-8/+bug/1729558 which
> has resulted in poor looking rendering on my machine.
> It turns out that the cause of this behavior is that Swing tries to do
> its own magic disabled item rendering by turning the text white and
> shifting it a pixel in each direction. I have no doubt there was
> probably a good reason for this, however the file has remained
> unchanged since its initial import in 2007! (Maybe someone from Oracle
> can find out more)
> Removing this code (patch attached) makes disabled menu items render
> correctly in both light and dark GTK themes. Its completely trivial,
> but I've nonetheless provided the patch for context. There is also
> some adjacent code that references a metacity theme called "blueprint"
> that also seems pre 2007 era, but I've left that in as I have no idea
> of its context.
>
> Appreciate if this change / bug could be reviewed & discussed. In the
> meantime I will also forward it downstream to Ubuntu as this is where
> I encountered it / affects my usage.
>
> Thanks
> Michael