If we can't criticize Islam in the West, where can it be criticized?

[vodkafan]

I think this is one issue where ignorance actually leads to tolerance. There are a lot of Liberals who seem to think that the Muslim world is completely fine apart from a handful of terrorists and hey, every group has a few bad apples right? so let's just lay off Islam. If they looked into it and found that the majority of Muslim countries are extremely oppressive i'm sure they'd be less tolerant

But the trouble is there's a lot of Conservatives who come to the same conclusion that the Muslim world is backwards, savage, barbaric or whatever other racially loaded word you want to throw in there without the facts who are just assuming that's the case because they have brown skin and worship a different god. This is what leads to all criticism of Islam being conflated with prejudice

I have worked alongside muslims for 11 years. I can say that yes, now I am prejudiced. I wasn't before. Prejudice means "Pre-judging"- we all do it every day with everyone we meet, actually.
 But coming back to muslims, it is very easy to "pre-judge" them. Because it is their faith that they all believe the same thing and behave in the same ways. You talk to them and after a while you know exactly what you are going to get. So don't call me ignorant because my prejudice is based on knowledge and personal experience, not ignorance.
And don't confuse my prejudice with racism because my wife is brown and all my children are brown.