Color style property not applying in div, in Joomla

[Last update: what seems the problem to be: 'color' style property is not inherited inside 'div p' in joomla2.5.]

The red color is not applying:

<div style="color:red;">
<p>paragraph</p>
</div>

Instead, this works:

<div style="color:red;">
paragraph
</div>

Problem only in Joomla2.5. The same code works in plain text files. Why this mess? Makes you feel very unsafe.