What you're not getting is that the Islam that is being portrayed in the media, and the Islam that actually exists in this world among the 1.6 billion muslims that many different denominations, some of which are polar opposites of eachother, philosophically, are two VERY different Islams.
It's not Islam that is the "Mecca of human rights violations and oppression". It's the individual cultures in the middle east, and yes these countries happen to be islamic at the same time. Just as some African countries that circumcise little girls and boys and have massive inequality among both gender as well as classes in society, are christian countries.
It's not the belief system, it's the primitivity of those 3rd world countries that, through their illiteracy and despot leaderships, interpret these books with mental retardation.
Over a 100 top muslim scholars across the world who collectively "represent Islam", has unanimously condemned ISIS as a perversion of Islam. ISIS don't represent Islam, neither does Al Quaida.
When I mentioned Christianity, it was meant as an arbitrary example. Because in christianity too, just as in Buddhism and Atheism, you have batshit insane f**kers who CLAIM to act in the name of said belief system or ideology. What people claim and what is the reality, are two completely different things.
That's all I have to say about this. Believe what you may, but for God's sakes use more than popular media and popular opinionists like, say, Sam Harris, as the only source for a complete picture of whatever you're trying to map together - Islam in this case.
Sam Harris is extremely well-spoken, eloquent and learned. But he's not that sophisticated when it comes to understanding cause and effect, and the real reasons why people do the things they do.
Blaming Islam is a gross over-simplification and it's also not a very constructive way to make muslims listen to you. And that's exactly what you don't want. You want people to educate themselves and see the world from a bigger perspective, NOT get defensive and insulted and then looking for a reason to fight you that they didn't have before, because they didn't feel like being backed into a corner before.
There's tons of impressionable, young muslims out there who are living life without conflict, until now when the entire western world is treating them like garbage and making accusations left and right, both personally and as a group. That will necessarily cause frustration.