I was able to mitigate the unreadability of the black text slightly (i.e. I can see it a bit better) by changing the font lines above to 13. It's a bit bigger.
and I only changed it for the values as opposed to using it for both the names AND the values.
But I'm a little surprised no one in the mod workshop knows how to change the text color from black to something more readable for the Recognition Manual in the Menu_1024_768.ini file? Who woulda thunk I'd stumble on to such a crazy mystery.