How do you change the font color in the Unity panel?
With my current (and favorite) theme the Unity panel is black text on a black background. Is there a way to set the font color in Unity or the theme somehow?
The panel text uses the color defined by the theme's text[NORMAL] property. You'll likely find that in the file /usr/share/themes/<theme>/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.
Note, that this doesn't affect the home button and indicator icon color. For that you'd have to change the icon set used by your theme (in Appearance Properties → Theme tab).