Why The Background Color Does Not Change When I Move Focus Away From A List View?

I have a layout like this: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Menu | Content

Solution 1:

Your problem is the state you are using. Just change

<itemandroid:drawable="@android:color/black"android:state_selected="true"/>

to

<item 
android:state_selected="true"android:state_focused="true"android:drawable="@android:color/black" />  

and it should work as intended :-)

As a side note, it is a general practice to put the drawable part after the state values.