Strange background color problem in gentoo Linux

[Joakim Tjernlund]

I am using Gnome2, KDE and MATE on a fresh Gentoo system.
In my .emacs I have:

(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(background-color . "#333333"))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(foreground-color . "White"))
(add-to-list 'default-frame-alist '(cursor-color . "White"))

Whenever I use MATE or KDE, emacs fails to set the background color to 
Green(#333333), it becomes white instead
and I end up with White one White on White :( 
If I open a new Frame I get my Green background though.

This happens on  24.3.50_pre20140228 and 24.3.9999-r1 (top of repo tree)
Tried both gtk2 and gtk3 USE flags

 Jocke